


Dha Kar'ta

by crispyjenkins



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Obi-Wan Kenobi, Force Bond, Force Visions, Hurt/Comfort, Jedi Culture Respected, M/M, Mandalorian Culture, Mando'a, Not Safe for Qui-Gon Fans, Not a bash fic but not.... good to him either, Post-Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Pre-Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, The Darksaber, cherry-picking canon from across all media, of the "it will get better" variety, playing fast and loose with darksaber lore, skinny love, the Force is a semi-sentient eldritch being, the Force loves Obi-Wan and so do I
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24819172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crispyjenkins/pseuds/crispyjenkins
Summary: The kyber hums around him, as if he wasn’t at this exact moment considering walking away from the Order.On Illum to replace the 'saber he lost on Naboo, Obi-Wan's visions lead him to a kyber that sings in Mando'a.
Relationships: Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Past Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze - Relationship
Comments: 951
Kudos: 2956
Collections: Anything But Qui-Gon, Favorite Rereads, Jedi-Friendly, Yubi SW





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fill for an anon over on my tumblr, who then came off anon and helped me plot an entire fix-it. this is that. 
> 
> **edit 10/2:** updates are scattered at the mo! i'm slowly working on this and everything else, and might someday get back to a regular schedule, but we will see! thank you all so much for your support i love you all (づ￣ ³￣)づ
> 
> If you didn't see the tag, I am not nice to Qui-Gon in this, I call him out more than I do in my other stories. I'm not here to bash him, but if you love him a lot, this fic might not be for you.

Ilum is colder than he remembered, though the last time Obi-Wan had been here, he had not feared wrapping himself up in the Force. It’s been… Maker, he hasn’t been back since after Melida/Daan, and something in him breaks again at the thought that he’d lost the ‘saber that had been with him for more than a decade. But, no, a lightsaber is a small price to pay to have saved his master.

Former master. He isn’t Qui-Gon’s apprentice anymore, Anakin had made sure of that. 

Obi-Wan had been sent to Ilum alone, no younglings in need of making their first ‘saber, and no one else needing to replace theirs; Anakin has a few more months in the crèche before he can build his, and Obi-Wan can’t thank the council enough that he doesn’t have to walk the caves knowing his replacement is somewhere doing the same. With Qui-Gon still in the Halls of Healing, Master Plo was chosen to knight him after a short squabble with Master Billaba and Yoda, both a little petulant that Master Windu had given the right to Master Plo for having spoken first. It had been slightly discomforting, Obi-Wan is used to quite the opposite of masters fighting over him, but though Jedi do not gloat, the Kel Dor had certainly been smiling behind his mask.

The doors to the caves open easily despite the ice, so maybe his great-grandmaster had been right about Obi-Wan rebuilding his lightsaber before his knighting ceremony. This thought doesn’t settle the feeling of _intruding_ when he steps over the threshold, the marrow-deep feeling of being an imposter in one of the most holy places in the galaxy. 

The kyber hums around him, as if he wasn’t at this exact moment considering walking away from the Order.

He’s hardly a proper Jedi, is he? Killing a Sith with a _sai tok_ , falling in love with Satine, holding a grudge against a nine year-old freed slave for taking his master away from him. Hadn’t he drawn on the dark side to defeat Darth Maul? Killed him not out of duty to his vow but in revenge for the fallen Qui-Gon? His lightsaber might have cauterised the wounds, but he has blood on his hands all the same.

So he keeps walking, refusing to touch a single crystal he passes. The Force tugs him deeper into the caves anyways, and he has half a thought to ignoring it (does he even deserve to listen to it anymore?) but for all his tumultuous thoughts, Obi-Wan is beholden to the Force, beholden to the grip it has on his insides. 

He follows it as his breath forms clouds before his lips, frost on his skin that he cannot even feel. Where would he go, if he left? Stewjon is insular, they would not want him back, but he cannot stay at the Temple. Naboo, perhaps? Padmé would surely welcome him, but could he really settle down on such a peaceful planet after spending over half his life running around the stars with his master?

Closing his eyes at the memory of Satine, he allows himself to… consider it. Would she still want him? They haven’t spoken since, but sometimes he can feel her in his mind still, a little warm bud that could bloom, if he let it. And even if she threw him out, Mandalore isn’t a bad place to restart.

“Could I really?” he muses out loud, stepping over a great crack in the stone floor and setting his feet to follow a barely-there path towards the lake, only for the Force to have him veer away from it. Could he really give up being a Jedi? After every trial the Force had put him through to even become an apprentice? He had _tried,_ so _kriffing_ hard, to get this far, could he really do anything else?

He swallows thickly and almost desperately pulls the Force back around himself, as if in apology, as if in repentance, as if anguish—

_Peace_ , it whispers, brushing over his mind even as it sinks claws into his ribs and pulls him up short.

Obi-Wan is twelve again, wind whipping around him as the Jedi transport takes off from Bandomeer, Qui-Gon Jinn staring down at him. Maker, but this is the worst he's ever felt, with their raw bond stretching with distance, yanking deep in him until he’s breathless, doesn’t Master Jinn feel it—?

And Obi-Wan is sitting in the living room of their Temple apartment, kneeling on his cloth meditation mat across from Qui-Gon’s bamboo one. His master’s warmth surrounds him in a glittering cloud of comfort and ease, and they’ve been at this for five years now, and still Obi-Wan holds this as his most treasured memory, something to cling to when things seem desolate or he’s been arguing with Qui-Gon, or—

He’s in the glass city of Sundari, brushing a hand over Satine’s cheek as she laughs, and Force, she’s even more beautiful than he remembers— She’s dying in his arms, bruises violent red around her throat, a sizzling ‘saber wound through her middle, and she’s beautiful even now, oh Maker, not like this—

Obi-Wan is older, his joints a little creakier, his hair grey at the temples, and he has a _beskad_ sticking out of his chest. Above him is a boy that looks suspiciously like himself, red hair and green eyes but with Satine’s lips and eyebrows. _Korkie_ , the Force tells him, as the boy leans over Obi-Wan and why is he angry? Ah, so this blade had not been meant for him—

Anakin, little Anakin with a padawan braid beams up at him in a training salle with a practice saber in his fists. Obi-Wan moves to correct his kata, and though he’s… sure he had never learned this from Qui-Gon, he knows it’s Form III, he knows it’s Soresu like he knows his own name, like he knows the padawan bond in his mind and the warm nova glow of Anakin attached to his core—

Obi-Wan is an old man, seated on a perfectly smooth grey stone above a green, green cliff battered by ocean waves and briny air. He meditates with the knowledge he had _come from here,_ the Force here as close to home as he could ever hope to achieve. He had not searched for the family that left him on the Temple steps, and that’s just fine by him, he could not have asked for a better place to begin his seclusion studies than Stewjon—

Obi-Wan is an old man, seated on a perfectly smooth red stone, the desert cliffs around him worn smooth from the sand that batters around him, ripping through his robes but never touching his skin. The Force is feral here, claws and bone and teeth teeth teeth, but somewhere out in the dunes, there shines Luke, pearlescent and good and proof that Obi-Wan has not failed just yet. 

Satine is screaming at him as she shoves Korkie behind her back and raises a _beskad_ that seems wrong, wrong in her hands, but he doesn’t have time to think about it, when he’s wielding the Darksaber, whistling as it cuts through the air against Tor Vizsla and his flimsy beskad, why _had they trusted him, he knew he could not be trusted_ , and now his family is going to pay the price— His ‘saber, black as space, connects with Vizsla’s, black as night, and Obi-Wan no longer wields the Darksaber, but something else entirely, with a beskad’s edge, with a hum that’s almost a scream, that moves towards the Darksaber with the intent to _shatter_ —

A Mando in blue and silver _beskar’gam_ hands him a hilt, hammered durasteel wrapped in black leather, so unlike any Jedi ‘saber hilt he’s ever seen, but Obi-Wan knows it’s his from the way it sings, the way the Force insists it’s his his his—

The blue and silver Mando with his helmet off, a man so desperately gorgeous that Obi-Wan wonders how he even copes— The Mando’s gloved hand grips Obi-Wan’s wrist, the face he knows so well twisted into dread and anger. _Don’t go,_ they beg, but Obi-Wan must, he cannot abandon Mandalore, he cannot- _Don’t you realise that Zabrak’s fucking crazy? Obi-Wan, he’s going to kill you—_

Obi-Wan is older, but not much, pinned underneath blue and silver armour as Sundari glass and blasterfire rains around them—

Obi-Wan watches the Beautiful Mando sleeping with his head pillowed on Obi-Wan’s arm, a new scar curling through his eyebrow that he hasn’t asked about yet—

A mini Beautiful Mando eyes him suspiciously, hands on his hips while his _buir_ stands behind him and tries not to laugh—

Obi-Wan is on Ilum, but he is not, he weaves his way through dusty streets he has never seen before and yet knows the way by heart, trusts that heart to lead him towards the hangar where his _aliit_ waits. He has beads braided messily in his hair, twisted by pudgy fingers insisting Obi-Wan deserves to look just as pretty as his _buir_ ; that durasteel and leather hilt bounces against his hip, and he has a single blue and silver gauntlet on his right arm. He is a Jedi, the Force assures him, in the way light bends through him, but he is also Mando’ad, he knows that without needing to ask. He belongs to a planet and to a people that he did not start with, in a strange Force-willed way that he can’t explain, and he’s a Jedi, but he knows he has a family waiting for him in an out-of-date _Firespray._ A black-bladed ‘saber hums at his side.

Obi-Wan opens his eyes in front of a rock wall, glittering kyber in every colour rising up the sheer face until their little lights disappear into the darkness far above him. Just above eye-level, there is a small crater in the wall, as if the rest of the kyber cannot grow around the single crystal at the crater’s center. 

It is opalescent and space-black, and looks as if it had been cut for a piece of extravagant jewellery. The Force whispers _heart heart heart_ , and he supposes it does look the size and shape of a _beskar’ta_ , and isn’t that fitting?

When he reaches out to take it, the white glow at its edges seems to suck in the light from around it, and it sings higher than any crystal he’s ever touched, whistling trials and heartbreak and pain and blood, but also home and laughter and family, if he lets it form the notes just right. It sings in Mando’a, in war gods and clans and beskar, and it sings for Obi-Wan alone.

  
Across the galaxy, Jango wakes on _Jaster’s Legacy_ in a cold sweat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations/Other:  
>  _sai tok_ — the ‘saber move of cutting an opponent in half, frowned upon by the Jedi for its roots in the dark side.  
>  _beskad_ — traditional Mandalorian curved saber made of beskar.  
>  _allit_ — Mando’a for “clan” or “family”.  
>  _buir_ — Mando’a for “parent”, gender neutral.  
>  _beskar’ta_ — Mando’a for “iron heart”, the elongated hex-shape common in Mandalorian armour designs, also called _kar'ta beskar,_ “heart of the iron”.
> 
>  _Dha Kar'ta_ — Dark Heart


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _This is a warning,_ Dha whispers to him, almost sounding forlorn. _It is far from over._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Mando’a:**  
>  _buir_ — “parent”, gender neutral  
>  _beskar’gam_ — Armour made of beskar, “Mandalorian Iron” that was actually probably a steel alloy  
>  _Haat Mando’ade_ — lit. “true children of Mandalore”, True Mandalorians  
>  _jetiise_ — Jedi, sing. jetii  
> 

“Well, that’s just maddeningly unhelpful,” Obi-Wan grumbles to the ‘saber hilt laid in front of his meditation mat, Dha giving a small whistle of amusement as Obi-Wan rouses himself fully from his meditation. He looks out the window he kneels in front of, and ah, he had meditated well past sunrise, but he hasn’t been planetside in almost a month, so he will take this small pleasure without remorse. 

An early morning Serenno breeze ruffles through his bedhead, and he stays there for a few minutes longer, savouring it. 

But Yan will not wait for him for firstmeal, and he had rather been looking forward to the Tatooine tea Anakin had sent when he heard they would be back on Serenno for a while, so he quickly dresses in the quiet of his private rooms. Yan had been... generous, when Obi-Wan had expressed a desire to share in his studies, providing him with a home outside the Temple and robes that did not make him think of Qui-Gon, as well as a high-tech comm that Anakin could reach him almost anywhere in the galaxy with. 

Obi-Wan dresses in these robes, the deep reds and violets of Serenno nobility, and scoops Dha up from the ground to attach at his lower back. Yan _hates_ that Obi-Wan does not keep his ‘saber at his hip, but Dha is quite insistent about being able to watch Obi-Wan’s back when he cannot; when Obi-Wan had first told him this, Yan had looked so far down his nose at him that Obi-Wan couldn’t help but laugh.

With this amusing thought, Obi-Wan joins his grandmaster in one of the smaller dining rooms —and, really, who needs more than _one_ dining room— purposely choosing the seat next to Yan instead of at the other end of the table. To his credit, Yan is not surprised anymore, but still raises a disappointed eyebrow at him. 

“I was beginning to wonder if you would find the time to join me,” he rumbles, attempting to pat down Obi-Wan’s messy hair that he had forgotten to brush before leaving his rooms. 

“Meditation ran long,” Obi-Wan shrugs, accepting the plate of fried tubers and spicy radishes from the chef droid that wheels into the room with their breakfast. 

Yan hmms as he pours their tea, and Obi-Wan knows him far too well to be bothered by his silence; Yan will ask what he wants to when he wants to, and not a moment before. He’s much like Qui-Gon, in that way, but Yan, at least, is never withholding information because he's _forgotten_ others might need to know it.

Obi-Wan sips at his tea and tries to ignore the hum of Dha’s impatience in his mind; they never like being on planet for too long, but Obi-Wan cannot live out of a ship, and he will not attempt to. Dha does not... speak in words, so much as suggestions, and Obi-Wan would very much appreciate it if they didn’t try to manipulate his wanderlust in the middle of firstmeal. 

Yan watches him with a touch of amusement, though Obi-Wan is sure nothing had slipped past his shields. “Your ‘saber was the cause of your late meditation?”

“They have been rather vocal recently. I sense something is changing.”

Yan simply nods and chews his radish thoughtfully. “I sensed something as well, during my own. Did anything become clear?”

Obi-Wan snorts in a rather undignified manner. “If only it were so easy, grandmaster. Dha actually seems... rather amused with my frustration, which certainly can’t mean anything good.”

“The Force is not ‘good’, grandpadawan, just as it is not evil.”

“Neither light nor dark,’ yes, I remember my teachings, Yan.” But Obi-Wan smiles to himself, knowing it is this adage that had made Yan pause before leaving the Order, that made him wait for Obi-Wan to finish his trials and ultimately decide to join Obi-Wan’s entirely foolish quest to understand his darksaber. “But could you feel it? The darkness?”

“The Force is as clouded today as it has been in my admittedly many years at the Temple.” Yan leans back in his seat to stroke his beard, his free hand tapping against his teacup. “Is that foolish crèchemate of yours arriving today?”

“For all Quinlan Vos is a fool, he is very punctual.” Dha seems to laugh at that, but what does Dha know, they’ve never met Quinlan. 

“Hm. And you trust him?”

“Please speak plainly, grandmaster, you know I do so dislike riddles.”

He hmmphs again, but smiles behind his beard. “My previous position on the Council has allowed me to view some of Vos’ reports, and I found one most intriguing.”

Obi-Wan eyes him suspiciously. “Intriguing for Dha, or intriguing for Jo.”

Only a slight twitch of his eye betrays Yan’s feelings on bringing Jocasta Nu into the conversation, and Obi-Wan will savor this tiny leak of emotion for many months to come. “Impertinent,” Yan chides, but accepts Obi-Wan’s peace offering of another cup of tea. “It indeed pertains to your darksaber: a Sith monastery on a small planet in the Dagobah system. Vos investigated it as one of his first assignments as a Shadow, nothing too interesting that we didn't already know, I’m afraid, but an out of place inscription he made note of looks rather like ancient Mandalorian script.”

Obi-Wan pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth, and then reprimands himself for such a reaction; how could he possibly avoid all things Mandalorian in a quest to understand a Mandalorian ‘saber? In fact, he’s lucky he’s managed to find so many leads _away_ from Mandalore thus far. 

Noting his reaction but not commenting on it, Yan also returns to his meal. “Have you attempted the Mandalorian alphabet with Dha?”

“No,” he mumbles, setting down his fork. “They didn’t want to.”

“Intriguing. But you know it?”

“Of course. Sa—” He clears his throat. “Duchess Satine taught me much of the Kalevalen dialect, and Master Nu was kind enough to teach me the dialects of Concord Dawn and Concordia as an extracurricular after leaving Mandalore.”

“Mm, so it is Master Nu when you are not being contumelious.”

Allowing himself a scowl at that, Obi-Wan wonders why he ever agreed to travel the galaxy with the Jedi's borderline insane etymology fanatic. “Only when you deserve chastisement.”

Instead of offended, Yan preens in amusement. “Come now, Obi-Wan: I’m sure you know more impressive words than _chastisement.”_

“Not before midmeal I don’t.”

Yan chuckles to himself and leaves Obi-Wan to the rest of his tubers.

Quinlan, in fact, arrives an hour early, pulling up to Yan’s manor in a taxi speeder with a travel pack perhaps too large to be appropriate for a Jedi.

He takes one look at Obi-Wan’s short hair and sighs, running his big hand through it as Obi-Wan greets him on the front steps. Obi-Wan wrinkles his nose, but lets it happen, Dha murmuring in interest at his back, prodding at his memories of Quinlan.

“No one will think you’re imitating him, y’know,” Quinlan says by way of greeting, words belying the confident smile on his face. 

And Obi-Wan has not had nearly enough Corellian brandy for this sort of conversation, so he sighs and hugs his friend that he hasn’t seen since before Ilum, since before... everything. Maybe someday Quinlan will be able to tell him what mission he’s been on for four years straight, but for now, this is enough.

Yan is in one of his many meetings about the agriculture of his estate, so Obi-Wan takes Quinlan to his rooms to wait. A serving droid brings them tea, Quinlan raising an eyebrow at the treatment, but says nothing until the droid leaves them at the floor table in the middle of the room.

“You sure are living it up here, Obi.”

Snorting, Obi-Wan fills their cups with something not nearly strong enough for Yan’s tastes, but Quinlan has always been weak to bitter teas. “We’re hardly ever on planet. We just came off a mission in the Tatooine system, we were on that Force-forsaken ship for almost a month.”

Quinlan barks a laugh at that, ignoring his tea to dig into the plate of cookies instead. “That’s nothing, try three.”

“I’d rather not, thank you.”

“Aw, Obi, no need to go all Coruscanti on me.” Stuffing three cookies into his mouth, Quinlan drops his elbows onto the table, and Dha mutters about bad manners; Obi-Wan has to stop himself from smirking. “Bant misses you at the Temple.”

“Never one to beat around the bush,” Obi-Wan sighs, undoing the sash that holds Dha to lean them against the table, and removes his obi-belt completely; Yan will be occupied for at least the next hour, but he might push it even longer just to piss Quinlan off, so Obi-Wan may as well get comfortable. “I’ve seen Bant and Garren more than I’ve seen you, Quin.”

“And they tell me you only stop by long enough to check on little Skywalker, and to convince the council you’re still alive before you leave again.”

Obi-Wan purses his lips, but can’t argue with that. And he knows his friends worry, have always worried, but it’s been worse, after Naboo. Maker, can he really divide his life so definitively around a single event? But there is a before and after Naboo that he can’t ignore, and Obi-Wan after Naboo never stays in the Temple for more than a few days.

Quinlan’s smile is far kinder than Obi-Wan deserves. “He didn’t actually renounce you, you know.”

“But he almost did.” Dha hums in comfort, poking at his shields until Obi-Wan takes a deep breath and releases his lingering hurt. “Someday, Quinlan.”

“No one talks about you any different,” he says, but it’s not in argument, only support. “The Temple will still be there when you’re ready. Besides, it seems Master Grumpy has been good for you! Master Fisto is telling anyone who’ll listen that you almost beat him in a spar.”

He grunts, because Kit Fisto is arguably the best duelist on the active roster, and it will be many years before he can match him properly. “He’s exaggerating, he thoroughly trounced me; I think Master Windu is teaching him Form VII on the side.”

“Bullshit,” Quinlan laughs. “But Master Grumpy is teaching you Soresu?”

The door slides open and the blood drains from Quinlan’s face, as Yan steps into the room with an amused frown. “Obi-Wan has far surpassed my skills with Form III,” he says, sitting quite gracefully next to them in spite of his age. 

“Yan,” Obi-Wan chides, but Yan looks at him evenly, until Obi-Wan sighs and breaks gaze to pour him a cup of tea. Quinlan shoves more cookies in his mouth, surely mentally writing his last will and testament when Yan turns his attention to him.

“Welcome, Knight Vos,” Yan says politely, “I hope your journey was comfortable.” 

Quinlan chokes down what’s left in his mouth to paste a roguish grin on his face. “Thank you for inviting me, Master Dooku.”

“Ah, so it is ‘Master Dooku’ only when I am in the room?”

Smiling, Obi-Wan lets them trade verbal burrs as he enjoys his tea and feels Dha sing with the contentment in the Force. Oh, Obi-Wan loves Bant and Garren and Luminara, but Quinlan has occupied a space in Obi-Wan’s heart for as long as either of them can remember, and they haven’t seen each other since before Naboo.

Ah, there’s that “before” again. Obi-Wan should stop thinking like that.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he cuts in before Quinlan works himself up enough to challenge Yan to a proper duel. His tablemates quiet with an air of petulance, Yan much better at hiding his from his expression; honestly, Obi-Wan doesn’t think Quinlan is even trying. “Yan, stop winding him up, you were the one to say we needed his help.”

“Yeah, about that,” Quinlan leans back onto the table, Yan raising a single judging eyebrow as Dha snickers. “No one back home knows what the kriff the two of you are doing, except for the High Council; the rumours are getting out of hand.”

Yan sniffs. “Jedi should be above such pastimes, I don’t see why I should waste my time worrying about trivial gossip.”

“Current padawan rumours are that you’ve both Fallen,” Quinlan continues as if Yan hadn’t spoken, “Anyone who’s seen you personally during your –incredibly rare– visits knows better, but still don’t know what to make of Obi completely disappearing after his trials. I asked Master Nu, because Obi-Wan certainly hadn’t told any of his agemates, and she said you’re doing _research,_ but not what kind. Now, Obi’s teacup is telling me something very interesting,” he holds it up with that smile that’s almost _too_ knowing. “You two aren’t really hunting Sith, are you?”

Obi-Wan exchanges a look with Yan before answering. “No. At least, not... intentionally.”

“Ahh, how I’ve missed your pointlessly vague answers, Obi.”

“Your work with Sith temples is the reason I’ve asked you here,” Yan says, folding his hands under his chin. “But not in an attempt to discover Sith secrets.”

“Initially, I wanted to join Yan with his studies on other organised Force users," Obi-Wan tells him softly, a hand back on Dha from where they rest next to him, "but he and Master Windu convinced me to change course."

Quinlan frowns. “Then your teacup is giving me very mixed signals.”

"Hmm, how to put this." Yan casts a look down to Dha, Quinlan tracking the action with interest, and Dha chirps in Obi-Wan's mind, preening under all the attention. "Our... research, as you put it, has often crossed over with the Sith and their history, but this is not our objective. We have had multiple encounters with Sith acolytes, perhaps that is what the cup is latching onto."

"That's not what it feels like," Quinlan immediately refutes. "If you're not hunting for Sith... what are you hunting?"

Obi-Wan offers a small smile. "Quinlan, do you remember learning about the Darksaber?"

Yan is called away for more estate business before Obi-Wan can light Dha for Quinlan, but he's fairly sure Yan would have left them alone for this conversation regardless: Yan is careful with it comes to Obi-Wan's last visit to Ilum, and never asks about the visions that had qualified for his Trial of Insight — the only trial his duel with Darth Maul had not covered.

Qui-Gon would have certainly not been so delicate about it.

"Only you, Obi," Quinlan finally decides on, when Obi-Wan powers down Dha to set them on the table between them. 

Quinlan doesn't reach out for Dha right away, arms crossed over his chest as he stares at them with a complicated expression. Dha murmurs back at his concentration, but Obi-Wan does not attempt to translate for Quinlan. 

"And the crystal is hexagonal?" he asks, looking back up at Obi-Wan. "Can I see it?

Obi-Wan shakes his head once. "I never take them out of the casing. I haven't since Ilum."

Hmming, Quinlan concentrates on Dha again. "And this is what you're researching? How you ended up with a Mandalorian lightsaber?”

“In essence.” Dha grumbles about being called a simple _lightsaber,_ and Obi-Wan snorts. “Master Yoda is the only one who remembers much about the original Darksaber, but even then, he knew very little. Yan and I have been chasing leads for the past three years, collecting its history, trying to find information on its original creator to see if it explains anything about... me.”

Quinlan simply nods and drums his fingers on the edge of the table. “Were... Were your visions just as vivid as the first few times?”

Obi-Wan has to swallow bile before he can answer. “Worse. It felt like I was living multiple lives, like the Force was shoving all these different Obi-Wans' memories into my head.”

Dha hums loud enough that Quinlan catches it, just a little, his eyes widening in surprise. It isn’t the first time someone else has been able to hear them, but it certainly doesn’t happen often, and Obi-Wan closes his eyes to tell them to calm down.

When he opens them again, Quinlan is watching him with a pinch between his brows. “You’re different, Obi,” he says quietly. “More than Bant said; she said you were sad, and quiet, but this is... Something happened in your visions.”

It isn’t a question, but Obi-Wan answers anyway, “Many things happened, but none to the me in this timeline.”

“Kriff, you sound like a bad holodrama.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“If I asked what changed, would you tell me the truth?”

Obi-Wan smiles sadly and Quinlan sighs, but smiles back, because it may have been years since they’ve seen each other, but that means nothing to their longer years together. 

“Alright.” Quinlan claps his hands together and grins, pulling them from their melancholy lull. “Can I touch them?”

Obi-Wan laughs, but nods when Dha doesn’t protest to the idea. “I should warn you there’s something dark following Yan and I, we don’t don’t know what yet. You might pick up some of that from Dha.”

“Noted,” he nods agreeably and reaches out to pick Dha up from the table.

Obi-Wan is cleaning his blaster next to his _buir_ with rough hands _,_ the firelight flickering over his _beskar’gam,_ and Obi-Wan hopes he’ll be able to complete his own soon, he’s been Jaster’s foundling for enough years that surely—

Obi-Wan races through the burning fields, choking on every breath as fire licks at his heels, why can’t he _run fast enough—_

He’s cleaning his blasters, bare hands more scarred, but paler than they used to be, from how often he keeps them hidden behind gloves. Firelight flickers over his _beskar’gam,_ but his chestplate sits alone against the log next to him. Jaster’s been gone for enough years he should be able to stop thinking about—

Obi-Wan has chains around his neck, using the one between his wrists to strangle the pirate that thought it would be a good idea to attack a spice freighter—

Obi-Wan is jolting awake in his bed drenched in sweat, sleep clothes sticking to him horribly, but all he can think about is that boy, offering to _blow himself up to save a Jedi—_

Obi-Wan is kneeling before the only _Haat Mando’ade_ grave site he can access, murmuring every Haat'ad that died at Galidraan, every commando he should have been able to protect, to save—

Obi-Wan snatches Dha from Quinlan’s hand, his blade all but screaming as Quinlan jerks away like he’d been burned. Not sure when either of them had gotten to their feet, they stare at each other until Dha stops trilling about shatterpoints, and some part of Obi-Wan knows these scenes were real, they happened, are happening, that they are not like his visions at Ilum. 

When Quinlan can finally unclench his jaw enough to speak, he slowly drops his dark eyes to the hammered durasteel hilt in Obi-Wan’s white-knuckled grip. “You let someone else touch Dha before me?”

Obi-Wan forces his racing heart to settle, Dha laughing in his mind as if they hadn’t just uprooted everything he thought he knew about them. “No,” he grates, “I have no idea who—”

“I’ve never gotten visions like that, was that because it was you, or because it was Dha?”

“Force knows, Quinlan, I’ve never...” But he has seen that _beskar’gam_ before, he _does_ know whose body and memories he had just temporarily inhabited. “Not even Yan has touched them.”

“So who’s brain were we just in? Your boyfriend?” Quinlan raises an eyebrow as Obi-Wan chokes on his tongue. 

“Quin— _No._ No one but us has... Whatever that was...” Cold creeps up his arm from Dha, locking every muscle up to his shoulder, and he makes no attempt to shake it off. 

_This is a warning,_ Dha whispers to him, almost sounding forlorn. _It is far from over._

Obi-Wan sits silently in Yan’s quarters, letting Quinlan recount the frankly horrifying experience of shared psychometry, Dha laid over his lap and humming in the back of his mind, attempting to smooth over the jagged edges of his shields. 

For once, Yan does not interrupt with questions, simply listens to Quinlan with his hands steepled under his chin; he glances at Obi-Wan only once, a silent inquiry to his health, and Obi-Wan gives a miniscule shake of his head.

Yan accepts this, leaning his elbows onto the table to stroke his beard as Quinlan trails off. “And you’ve never met this Mandalorian?”

“No,” Obi-Wan mumbles, because it isn’t _exactly_ a lie. “And they’ve certainly never touched my ‘saber.”

“Hm, perhaps another test from Ilum?”

“Force, I hope not,” Obi-Wan groans, dropping his face into his hands and praying that this was not in fact another test; he doesn’t think he can survive living as another Obi-Wan again without losing himself. 

Dha chirps, but Obi-Wan can’t make out what they’re trying to say.

“And I didn’t get anything about the darksider following you,” Quinlan says, sinking into his seat tiredly. “Just... that Mando.”

_Beautiful Mando,_ Obi-Wan’s brain is kind enough to remind him, and he equally-kindly tells his brain to shut up. He doesn’t need to think about those scarred hands on his wrist, begging him not to leave, he doesn’t need to think about the implication of those hands handing his ‘saber back— and now there’s a thought: he supposes Beautiful Mando had indeed held Dha, just not... this one.

“Perhaps,” Yan begins, pulling Obi-Wan from his wallowing, “we should simply allow this to run its course. We cannot prepare for an invisible enemy, and Dha seems to know more than they are willing to... tell us,” he makes an expression like he’d sucked on a lemon, still unable to process that Obi-Wan’s bond to Dha is closer to that shared between two Jedi, not a Jedi and his ‘saber. “We can only move forward.”

“We’re not going to learn anything new just sitting here on Serenno,” Obi-Wan adds in agreement, “We should still make for the Dagobah system.”

“That’s a week-long jump.” Quinlan scratches his chin, eyes distant and surely doing the course math already, an ability Obi-Wan does _not_ share with him. “If anything came up concerning your darksider, we wouldn’t be reachable.”

“I have other business to attend to,” Yan says, finally lowering his hands. “You and Obi-Wan are more than capable of making the journey yourselves, while I monitor channels from here.”

It’s far from the first time he and Yan had taken separate paths during their time together, but this parting feels different, more final. Another before and after. 

“We’ll leave in the morning,” Obi-Wan murmurs, gripping tight to Dha’s hilt.

The first night on Obi-Wan’s ship —that Dha had named _Legacy_ as soon as he’d bought it _—_ Quinlan lets himself into Obi-Wan’s quarters while he's compiling notes on his datapad. 

But Quinlan isn’t looking for conversation. Instead he waggles his brows at Obi-Wan and starts touching absolutely everything, from Obi-Wan’s research pads to the tiny trinkets he’s allowed himself from missions and has lined up on the viewport sill, and Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. He’s not going to see anything else of the Mando from his possessions, he’s sure of that. 

Dha mutters agreement, offended.

Obi-Wan lets Quinlan satisfy his curiosity and returns to his notes, getting lost in the timeline he and Yan had created for the Darksaber. Sometimes they seem just as far from an answer as when they started after leaving the Temple, but since his meditation the previous morning... For all Obi-Wan has had visions of the future, he doesn’t quite believe in _fate,_ but recently, he’s not so sure. Dha is certainly no help, adding murk and uncertainty at every turn.

“Did you give him your braid?”

Blinking back to himself, Obi-Wan raises his head to frown at Quinlan, who seems to have given up on his search to lean against the viewport sill. “Did I give it to who?”

“Master Qui-Gon.”

He immediately drops his gaze again, pretending to be drawn back to his pad. “No.”

“Good.”

Which is not the response he had been expecting. More than a tradition, it’s expectation for a padawan to gift their master their braid or beads after their trials, Obi-Wan has never known anyone who hasn’t. Only Yan and Anakin know where his had gone.

Quinlan shoots him a small, sad smile and drops onto the cushion across the table from him. “Maybe Master Qui-Gon deserved it before Naboo, but certainly not after.”

Before and after. “I’m not drunk enough for this conversation,” Obi-Wan cuts in before he can continue, and instead of laughing, Quinlan sighs.

“See, it’s ‘cause you say things like that that I worry about you.” 

“I’m twenty-eight, Quinlan, you don’t need to worry about me.”

“You gonna tell me to stop?”

And Obi-Wan sighs as well, because he’s not, and Quinlan knows it. Instead he sets one elbow on the table and holds out his hand, and Obi-Wan takes it.

Quinlan somehow manages to land the _Legacy_ within a klick of the old Sith monastery, and Obi-Wan resigns himself to the thought that he really should introduce him to Anakin, let them yell and bond over ridiculously dangerous flight maneuvers. Because _no one_ should have been able to get through the twisted trees of Dagobah, much less find a stretch of solid ground big enough for them and then _land_ there, all while keeping up snarky commentary about Obi-Wan’s own less-than-impressive piloting skills.

“You know,” Obi-Wan says as he has to untangle his robe from a particularly spiky bush, “we wouldn’t have had to come all the way out here if you had taken proper holos of the inscriptions.”

Quinlan groans, shoving his way between two trees and almost landing on his face when his foot catches on a root. “I wasn’t here for _archeology,_ I was here to investigate a tip about someone trying to find the temple.”

“This is why you always get your reports returned to you three times before they’re accepted, you’re not thorough.” 

“Obi, we’ve been having this argument since we were eight. Do you really think it’s going to go any differently this time?”

“A man can dream,” Obi-Wan mutters, catching up to his idiot of a crèchemate and helping him to steady on his feet. Quinlan grins recklessly at him and tugs him through another copse of trees before they quite literally stumble onto the temple.

At one point the stone must have been black, but it’s been over a thousand years since anyone has been around to keep it clean, and the swamp has taken it over from foundations to skylight. It must have been _beautiful_ when it was occupied, Obi-Wan thinks, running a hand over a crumbled wall and feeling the careful craftsmanship of it.

Quinlan watches him, shaking his head fondly and muttering, “Book brain,” before starting to walk further into the ruins,

Rolling his eyes, Obi-Wan follows him past the threshold proper, the dark seeming to swallow them immediately. But it doesn’t... feel _dark,_ not the way all the other temples had. Dha hums a single long note that Obi-Wan doesn’t know the meaning of, encouraging him to trail behind Quinlan further into the monastery. 

Quinlan even starts to whistle to himself, as if they aren’t supposedly in a hovel of concentrated Darksider filth, and it’s then that Obi-Wan realises this... monastery doesn’t even feel like a _Jedi_ has been here before, much less been inhabited for hundreds of years by Sith.

“Quinlan, you were sure this was a Sith temple?” he asks the half dark, because he doesn’t feel nearly as uneasy as he should, nearly as uneasy as he _has_ felt on his research with Yan. 

“Of course, Obes: Master Nu was the one to give me this mission.” He swings his hands up behind his head and picks up his tune again, much to Dha’s consternation.

Quinlan leads them into a chamber overrun with vines and roots, but it could have once been some sort of altar room, with a raised dais at the center and the remains of a stone table. They don’t stop long enough for Obi-Wan to get a good view of it, but he notes there doesn’t seem to be any sort of inscription on the altar itself, which. Odd. 

“It’s been a few years,” Quinlan says with a laugh, pulling out his ‘saber to slice through several thick roots to get access to a wall, where Obi-Wan can just see a few painted flagstones, “but it should be right around here.”

Obi-Wan darts forward before he can damage any of the faded paint, shooting him a reprimanding glare. But Quinlan just grins and backs up to give Obi-Wan room, deactivating his ‘saber as he goes.

“Yes, thank you,” Obi-Wan mutters, stepping up onto the root crawling along the bottom of the wall. It takes a little to brush the smaller vines and leaves away enough to look for the inscription properly. Quinlan quickly gets bored, wandering to the other side of the room, but he thankfully doesn’t start whistling again.

Obi-Wan finds the inscription several feet away from what must have once been a mural, simply scratched into the stone as if in afterthought; he has to twist himself a little to get a good look at it, bent almost fully around one of the thicker roots. He pulls out his datapad to take a few holos, because as much as he wishes he could translate it right then, he doesn’t know contemporary Mando’a nearly well enough, much less this older script.

“Hey, Obi...” Quinlan says uncertainly, just before Dha trills in warning and the far wall explodes inwards. Yelling, Quinlan Force-jumps out of the way and lands where Obi-Wan is rolling back up to his feet and pulling Dha off his belt.

He doesn’t activate them, though, not until a red ‘saber cuts through the dust and darkness. 

Dha sings as they make contact with the red ‘saber, and Obi-Wan easily shoves the wielder away. Quinlan helpfully Force-shoves all the dust from the enclosed space, whipping through their clothing and tossing his dreadlocks, before revealing a Nautolan in robes too similar to Darth Maul’s, oh Maker it’s just the same—

“Rret So?” Quinlan asks in confusion, and the Nautolan just grins before lunging at them again. 

And then Obi-Wan doesn’t really have the time to wonder how the Temple pilot that had disappeared months before the Invasion of Naboo is somehow here at the ass-end of the galaxy with a Sith’s ‘saber and presence.

Dha thoroughly throws Rret So off balance just by their existence, but the whistle they make as they cut through the air, so unlike that of a normal lightsaber gives Obi-Wan the immediate advantage. Only all the better when it becomes clear three blows in that Rret So isn’t _half_ the duelist Darth Maul had been.

_Go now,_ Dha whispers, and Obi-Wan listens, shifting smoothly into Makashi and twisting to slice clean through two of Rret So’s lekku.

Rret So yells, but is easily pushed back towards the hole in the wall he had made, barely keeping up with Dha’s strikes as he stumbles over the rubble. A distant part of Obi-Wan is angry: this is the Sith Master’s answer to Darth Maul’s defeat? _This,_ a hot-headed Fallen Jedi who is so easily frightened by Obi-Wan’s competition?

_Peace,_ Dha whispers, and Obi-Wan listens, grabbing those thoughts by the roots and all but flinging them into the Force; he recenters himself and clears his mind, bringing Dha back close. He plants his feet with purpose and lifts Dha above his head in first kata for Form III. 

Rret So clearly doesn’t know what to do when an opponent switches forms on the fly, and immediately jumps back onto the offensive, sloppy Ataru founded on half-memorised katas and rage. Had his master taught him nothing?

It’s easy to goad him into wasting his energy on sweeping strikes, unnecessary acrobatics that lets Obi-Wan defend against one-handed and allows his mind focus on the hand pulled to his chest instead of Rret So. Obi-Wan has only been practicing Soresu for the past year, and he knows he will tire far quicker than it would take to defeat the Nautolan, so he waits until he hears Rret So’s breath start to stutter.

And then he ducks under the red ‘saber and cleanly sweeps his feet out from under him, catching Rret So’s head by the back of his neck and pushing Dha straight through his spine, right between his shoulders. 

Releasing his breath, Obi-Wan deactivates Dha and guides Rret So to the ground, but he’s rejoined the Force before Obi-Wan’s knees even touch the swamp floor.

Quinlan eases into his periphery to pick up Rret So’s dropped ‘saber and turn it off, before he kneels next to the both of them. He carefully checks Rret So’s pulse before looking back up at Obi-Wan, and oh, he is undeserving of the kindness in his eyes. 

“This certainly isn’t going to help with padawans calling you ‘The Sith Slayer’.”

He startles out a wet laugh, letting Quinlan brush the unexpected tears from his cheeks before helping him to his feet. 

* * *

Jango sits on the edge of his bunk with his head in his hands, bare feet pressed to the cold floor of the Slave I as he tries to push back the nausea that had woken him. 

He’s used to the dreams by now, the horrific snapshots of someone else’s life, a _Jedi's_ life, but every now and then, it’s like this, where the fool he's sharing a brain with is hurt more than Jango can properly quantify. He has no problems with killing, he wouldn’t have made it this far if he did, but he’d felt that _jetii’s_ horror and remorse, felt every bit of him screaming at the _wrong_ of such an action.

And, now, he’s seen the darksaber. Kriff, he’s actually going to have to go save this idiot from himself, isn’t he? 

He’s been putting it off for three years, attempting to seek out whoever is putting these memories in his head while he sleeps. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so awful if it was chronological, but Jango’s seen moments from all over this _jetii’s_ life, from his induction into the Coruscant Temple to... whatever this is, all entirely out of order.

Something in him that won’t be argued with knows this was not an older memory, that it had happened as he watched it play out. And that’s definitely never happened before.

He has no business trying to track this idiot down, no business trying to insert himself into a life he knows nothing (everything) about, but this... If this Jedi has been running around with a darksaber, it’s only a matter of time before Vizsla catches wind of it — if he hasn’t already. But Jango doesn’t even know the idiot's _name,_ so he can’t track him down through regular means; he’ll have to... use his dreams. Memories. Visions.

Kriff, Jaster is probably laughing at him.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, Jango swings to his feet and dresses in the quiet dark of his cabin. There’s no one on the Slave I to judge him when he puts in the hyperspace coordinates for Coruscant, but he still feels a little stupid for trusting something he’d seen in his _sleep_ : he’s _Mando’ad,_ he hates _jetiise_ with every fiber of himself, he shouldn’t be going straight into their den.

Sighing, Jango sinks into the pilot’s seat and gets ready to leave atmo. Clearly, he’s not fooling anybody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dooku and Obi play word games. Cause they're nerds.
> 
> i make reference to [a post](https://crispyjenkins.tumblr.com/post/618854131145359360/the-mandalorian-alphabet-is-written-with-music) discussing the Mandalorian alphabet being similar to cuneiform, and how it was probably written using both Mandalorian swords (beskad) and sharp flutes (bes’bev), so here it is if you're interested!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Mando’a:**  
>  _osik_ — impolite form of “dung”, _shit_  
>  _beskar’gam_ — Armour made of beskar, “Mandalorian Iron” that was actually probably a steel alloy  
>  _Mand’alor_ — “Sole ruler”, contended ruler of Mandalore.  
>  _jetii_ — "Jedi" sing, pl. _jetiise_

Yan is waiting for them in the Temple hangar, standing primly with his hands behind his back as Quinlan lands the _Legacy_ in a guest dock, and Obi-Wan didn’t think he could be so relieved to see him. When they had commed him from Dagobah, Yan hadn’t been sure if he would be able to make it in time to meet them; Obi-Wan decides he doesn’t want to know what sort of hyperspace traffic laws he’d broken to beat them there.

Master Windu and Master Plo join Yan as Quinlan guides the hovering cryopod holding Rret So from the _Legacy,_ the Force a sad, worried cloud around them that they don’t even try to hide. 

“Masters,” Obi-Wan bows to them, elbowing Quinlan until he does the same. Master Windu raises a brow but bows back while Master Plo chuckles.

“It is good to see you both returned safe,” he says. “Knight Vos, if you could follow me to the council chamber with the cryopod, Master Billaba would like to confirm the cause of death.”

Obi-Wan manges not to flinch, but Quinlan still sends him a questioning look, and Obi-Wan waves him on. With a shrug, he follows Plo from the hangar, Yan a step behind, which leaves Obi-Wan alone with Master Windu looking down at him sadly; he wonders how many shatterpoints he’d caused on Dagobah. 

“Knight Kenobi,” he greets softly. 

Forcing a small smile and ignoring Dha’s grumbles at being forgotten, Obi-Wan lets him mentally brush against his shields — not letting him through, but with nothing to hide. Unlike other masters, Windu doesn’t prod at cracks or weak spots, simply notes them before retreating, and Obi-Wan is thankful to get this out of the way before he has to meet with the entire council.

“Hm, forgive me, Kenobi,” Windu finally says. “Some on the Council were... concerned.”

“I don’t blame them,” he offers back with a more sincere attempt at a smile.

Windu snorts and gestures with his hand. “Even an initiate would see you have not a scrap of darkness in you,” he says conversationally, unhurriedly leading them towards the elevators. “Though I’m sure you can imagine the sorts of rumours your latest adventure is causing.”

Obi-Wan does have to wince at that, knowing he shouldn’t have expected any of this to remain a secret for long; but he is used to pitying, confused looks, and can handle the few Jedi and Flightcorp members in the hangar staring at him. “Quinlan mentioned something of the sort,” he sighs.

“Hm. Knight Kenobi, may I be blunt?”

“You have never been anything else,” Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow right back.

He earns a small chuckle and a hand on his shoulder as they step into the elevator, Windu waiting until the doors swish closed before saying, “While there is no darkness in you, I sense a great amount of fear.”

Having expected this, Obi-Wan tucks his hands into his sleeves and takes a deep breath. “Not fear. Regret.”

“For Rret So’s death?”

“And for Darth Maul’s.”

Windu hmms again, turning away to consider this. “It is not against the code to take a life in self-defense.”

He shakes his head. "I did not kill either of them with self-defense in mind.”

“No, your mind was on the battle,” Windu agrees immediately, making Obi-Wan flinch. “As any warrior’s would be, and you are first and foremost a warrior, Kenobi. I see no fault in that.”

“Are we not supposed to be peacekeepers?” Obi-Wan swallows bile and stares straight ahead, letting Dha soothe his jackrabbit heart enough that he can get control of his emotions again. “Rret So was...”

“Rret So intended to kill both you and Vos on Dagobah.” Windu presses a button on the elevator panel to slow it to a stop between floors, and they have quite a few stories left to go before reaching the council chamber. Bemused, Obi-Wan looks out the glass to the ground far below them, and then back to Windu, who lets out a harsh sigh. “Kenobi, you are the only Jedi doubting your motives in bringing down a Sith apprentice — if Rret So could even be considered that.” His his mouth twists, and Quinlan must have told him how sloppy Rret So’s swordsmanship had been. Dha trills in agreement, implying something about Rret So’s 'saber that Obi-Wan can’t actually translate into words, and he’s not sure he wants to try. “That the darkside has stepped so intentionally into your path again has not escaped our notice, and for you to still be so firmly in the Light...”

“Master Windu,” Obi-Wan licks his lips, “I would not be so sure of my thoughts when I fought these Darksiders.”

“To follow the Code is not to have a lack of dark thoughts, but rather the mastery and control of them.” Windu taps another button and the elevator starts to move again, disorienting Obi-Wan almost as badly as this conversation. “That you have returned from two Sith duels perhaps even Lighter than before is commendable, and I am not the only one to think so; keep that in mind during our questioning.”

He steps out of the elevator like he hadn’t just ripped at least half a rug out from under Obi-Wan, walking to the council chamber with even strides and leaving Obi-Wan to collect himself. 

He felt Lighter? Even after Maul?

Shaking his head to clear it, Obi-Wan takes his time in making his way down the hall, to where Quinlan is waiting outside the grand doors. He looks him up and down with a troubled frown, which only encourages Obi-Wan to tighten his shields and smooth his own expression.

“Master Windu give you grief?”

Unsure what had actually just happened, he shrugs helplessly. “No?”

Quinlan’s frown deepens, ignoring the mental tug from the Council telling them to enter. “That’s not something you should answer with a question.”

“Honestly, Quin, I haven’t known what’s going on since Naboo.”

Which is a little too honest with too little time to address, and Quinlan grumbles _“Later,”_ as the chamber doors open and beckon them more insistently into the room. 

Yan is already waiting inside, nodding as they enter and looking down his nose at Obi-Wan with a frown that’s almost a sneer; he feels Quinlan tense at his side, but Obi-Wan knows better and gives Yan a tiny head shake, assuring his grandmaster that he as well as can be considering the circumstances. With just as miniscule a nod in return, Yan faces Windu and Yoda as if Quinlan isn’t glaring daggers at him.

Obi-Wan notes that the cryopod is nowhere in sight, but the masters all have datapads on their laps, and he almost doesn’t want to know what information they’d gleaned from Rret So’s corpse. Dha pokes at his mind in reprimand, reminding him he had been protecting Quinlan just as much as himself; Obi-Wan tells Dha to piss off.

“Master Dooku was just catching us up on the events leading up to Dagobah,” Windu starts, leaning into his chair and putting his fingers together. “A Darksider had been following you for some time?”

Obi-Wan can do this, it’s just questions, it’s just recounting events. He can do this. “We’ve been tracked the past three months for certain,” he confirms, “but Dha has been unsettled for almost a year.”

Master Mundi shuffles in his seat with a little sigh, the most skeptical of the council, but even he can’t completely discount Obi-Wan’s connection to his ‘saber, not when the bond is a physical thing in his mind that anyone who goes past his shields can touch. Having Yan Dooku on your side certainly didn't hurt, either. 

“Hrrm, think it was a Darksider, did you?” Yoda asks, leaning on his gimer stick.

“We had our suspicions,” Obi-Wan says, Yan allowing him to speak without interruption. “But not quite... I did not expect another apprentice, but I cannot speak for Master Dooku.”

Yoda closes his eyes and skims the Force, but seemingly finds nothing as he sighs. “Worrying that one of our own has Fallen, it is, yes. Hrm, Knight Vos, what find in your psychometry did you?”

Quinlan stands straighter even as he gently bumps Obi-Wan's shoulder with his own. “When I touched his ‘saber, I got the feeling he wasn’t sent by his master, that he came after us to try and prove something.”

“That does align with what we knew of Rret So’s character before his Fall,” Master Billaba says, tapping her fingers absentmindedly on her datapad. “Knight Kenobi, did he feel similar to Darth Maul?”

Only years of practice keeps Obi-Wan from reacting to the name. “Yes, Master.”

“Could you sense if he shared the same master as Maul?”

“Yes.” And there isn’t any doubt in his mind that Rret So was a (poor) replacement for Maul, who had likely trained since childhood to become a Sith, but the darkness in them could not have been more similar. Dha had not gone against Maul, but they agree that the Zabrak in his memories could have only been trained by the same Sith as the one behind Rret So. 

The council breaks into mutters, some in dismay, some in doubt, and Obi-Wan bolsters himself against the negative, drawing on both Yan and Quinlan next to him until his apprehension bleeds from his shoulders. Yan takes half a step closer, though his gaze does not stray from the masters, and a traitorous part of Obi-Wan thinks back to the last time he had been before the Council needing such support. Support that Qui-Gon could not give.

Windu sits forward in his chair, not quite looking at Obi-Wan, but just close enough that it unsettles him. “That two Sith have crossed your path within five years cannot be coincidence. How your... ‘saber plays into this certainly bears exploring further. For those unaware,” he makes a short gesture to the council members rotated in after Obi-Wan’s knighting, “Master Dooku and Knight Kenobi have been searching for an explanation concerning his darksaber.”

“Something new to add, have you, hrm?” Yoda cuts in, and Obi-Wan likes it even less, being under his sole scrutiny. 

But Obi-Wan has faced far more difficult tasks. He pulls his datapad from within his robes and sends copies of the holos of the Dagobah inscriptions to the council’s own datapads, along with his write-up of his duel with Rret So. “This is the only new development Yan and I have found since our last report to the council.”

Windu raises a brow with an impressed little smile to Yan, and Obi-Wan flushes. 

“Ah,” he says, neck burning, “I meant Master Dooku and I.”

Windu waves a hand, still smiling as he settles back into his seat. “Familiarity with your lineage is no reason to apologise, Kenobi. But your holos of the temple on Dagobah raise more questions than they answer.”

Looking over his pad, Plo Koon hums and scrolls through the holos with a claw. “I do not recognise this script.”

“Master Dooku and I believe to be an ancient Mandalorian cuneiform,” Obi-Wan says, relieved the conversation had not lingered on his embarrassment. “On our return trip to Coruscant, I was able to translate a few characters, but not nearly enough for proper comprehension.”

“Would Master Nu be of help?” Billaba asks.

“No, I was able to comm her before leaving Dagobah,” he shakes his head. “She does not recognise enough of the script to help in translating it.”

“I’ll put a few feelers out,” Billaba says, looking at her pad, “‘see if an ally or someone in the Temple has studied ancient Mandalorian.”

_Mando’a,_ Dha corrects stiffly, and Obi-Wan has to hold back a short laugh. 

“If this Darksider was able to track our path,” Yan’s steady voice rumbles from next to him, startling a few of the masters as if they had forgotten he was there, “others may attempt the same. Perhaps, until we know more, we tell only those necessary what my grandpadawan and I search for.”

“Keep it need to know.” Windu nods in agreement as Yoda hrmms to himself. “The High Council will continue looking into Rret So’s movements before Dagobah, try to trace them to a source. In the meantime, one of our Shadows on the planet Lom has found a small outpost of Sith acolytes and requested both your and Knight Kenobi’s expertise.”

Obi-Wan startles, but says nothing against the request; if you could call killing two people in single combat _expertise._

The Jedi Shadow is dead when they arrive on Lom, her chest a mess of blaster wounds and her legs cut off at the waist. 

Crouching next to her in the shadow of another crumbling Sith temple, Obi-Wan still checks her pulse, just to be sure. He refuses to look lower than her chin — he has enough images of _sai tok_ burned in his mind to last a lifetime, he doesn't need more. 

Yan stands behind him, resigned gaze trained on the temple walls while he gives Obi-Wan a moment to steady himself; Dha buzzes in his mind, comfort and anger and grief, all while he tries to center himself enough to release those emotions back into the Force.

“Padawan,” Yan says quietly, and Obi-Wan gets to his feet, unhooking Dha from his belt and joining his grandmaster before the remains of the temple doors. “Forward?”

Inhaling slowly, Obi-Wan brushes against Yan’s mind in thanks for his understanding, before nodding towards the temple. “Only forward,” he agrees quietly.

Unlike the temple on Dagobah, this one’s roof has all collapsed inwards, so that they are walking over the pieces of the ceiling rather than the floor, as Lom’s winds buffet the almost-white sand from the dunes around it into every nook and gap in the black stone. Winding through the passages and following the burn of darksider energy from deep within the labyrinth, Obi-Wan wonders if any of the below-ground levels are even accessible anymore. 

Yan says nothing as he lets Obi-Wan lead, but still follows directly at his side. It’s a little unfair, Obi-Wan thinks, how put-together he still looks under Lom’s blistering red sun, especially when he even seems to know what Obi-Wan is thinking, a tiny amused smile hidden by his beard. Obi-Wan is not impressed.

Entering one of the center chambers that had probably had an impressive skylight at one point if the glass _everywhere_ is anything to go by, Obi-Wan’s gaze is immediately drawn to the body of a Mirialan collapsed next to a burnt out campfire, belongings strewn out around them. He stops himself from running to it, instead sinking into the Force first, and the Mirialan is –was– one of the Darksiders apparently inhabiting the ruins. The concentration of energy would suggest a second, but he can’t pinpoint where the other is; from Yan’s little grumble, his grandmaster is having just as much trouble reading through all the interference. 

“Yan,” Obi-Wan murmurs by way of warning before he carefully steps into the chamber properly, eyes scanning the tall walls and rock formations surrounding the temple for any sign of movement. The perfectly-clear sky doesn’t help, allowing the sun to cast warped shadows and mirages over the reflective stone, but Obi-Wan puts his trust in Dha’s ability to warn him of immediate danger, and moves quickly to the Mirialan.

He doesn’t need the Force to know they’re dead, with a ‘saber wound through their chest and a blaster still in their hand. They must have been quite powerful to have taken down the unnamed Shadow and still make it this far into the temple before succumbing to their injuries, but Obi-Wan knows from experience even skilled fighters are easily felled with a ‘saber through the ribs.

Obi-Wan has to take another few deep breaths before he can release his grief and stand again, hating that they have cause to use both the cryopods the council had sent with them.

Dha is in his hand before he can register the action, his blade whistling as he knocks a blasterbolt clean out of the air, his whole body whirling towards the sudden surge of darkness on the outskirts of the temple. _There,_ a human in desert garb on one of the outer walls, crouched behind their blaster rifle that’s quickly adjusting its aim back to Obi-Wan.

He deflects another bolt, but Yan doesn’t get the chance to leap up the nearest wall before a grey blur knocks into the human darksider and sends their blaster flying. 

With the sun in his eyes, it takes Obi-Wan a moment to recognise the blur as a _Mandalorian,_ in full beskar’gam and quickly winning the fistfight with the Darksider. Stunned, Obi-Wan does nothing when the Mando slams the heel of his palm into the Darksider’s nose, nor as they immediately wrap them in a grappling line. The Mando physically punts the Darksider into the air so the they can jetpack to the center chamber.

Instead of warning, Dha is all but _singing_ as the Mando drops his trussed-up quarry right next to the Mirialan and lands a few feet from Obi-Wan in an explosion of dust. And Obi-Wan finds he can’t move even as the Mando stomps towards him, because Dha is chanting nonsense in Mando’a, singing in stories Obi-Wan has never heard, as the Mando rips off his helmet mid-sentence,

“—all the stupid _osik_ I’ve ever seen pulled—” Beautiful Mando snarls, marching right up to Obi-Wan and grabbing him by the front of his robes. “Have you lost your kriffing _mind?”_

_Mand’alor, Mand’alor!,_ Dha chants, muddling Obi-Wan’s mind with images of writhing tusked beasts, flashes of homesteads and desert gardens, glass and fire and mythosaur roars and _fire fire fire—_

“I must insist you release my grandpadawan,” Yan’s voice cuts through the holoreel playing behind Obi-Wan’s eyes, his grandmaster coming to stand next to them looking completely unrattled, if it were not for the small pinch between his brows. "At least until we are properly acquainted."

Beautiful Mando turns his snarl onto Yan, and doesn’t let go of Obi-Wan’s robes. “I don’t have time for you. You,” he spins back to Obi-Wan, “ _jetii,_ why are you in my dreams?”

Obi-Wan blinks and realises he’s not afraid, not of the hand on him nor the undiluted rage vibrating in the Force. He does not fear this man.

“I-In your what?” he finally manages, as their Darksider captive groans in pain behind the Mando. 

“You’ve been in my head for three _kriffing_ years, what do you mean ‘what’?”

_Mand’alor, Mand’alor,_ Dha insists, making it hard for Obi-Wan to focus on understanding just what the kriff is going on. Beautiful Mando is real, is here, doesn’t just exist in the caves of Ilum, and Obi-Wan desperately wants to know just what the Force is trying to pull, dangling happiness in front of him when he knows he is undeserving.

“I-I apologise,” Obi-Wan tries, “but I really don’t know who you think–”

“You were a temple bastard,"Beautiful Mando growls, leaning more insistently into his space. "You were barely accepted as Qui-Gon Jinn’s apprentice, and you keep stupid trinkets in your ship, and you didn’t give your padawan braid to your master, who certainly _didn’t_ kriffing deserve it after the _osik_ he pulled on Naboo—”

Obi-Wan grabs his wrist and has to reign his strength back from completely crushing it. Beautiful Mando — _Mand’alore,_ Dha reminds him— glances down at their hands and takes a careful step back, but doesn’t try to shake Obi-Wan off. Yan observes silently, clearly understanding something is happening that he has no part in, though he looms close in case the Mando tries anything. 

_Jango,_ Dha tries again, throwing themself against his shields trying to get him to listen, and it’s only then that Obi-Wan realises Dha has never once spoken to him in Basic.

“You’ve... You’ve been getting dreams?” Obi-Wan licks his dry lips, because it’s been three years since Ilum, and he hasn’t had a single dream since then. “Of— me?”

The Mando — _Jango,_ Dha hisses— slowly releases his grip on Obi-Wan, all white-hot rage replaced with a simmering confusion that makes its home snuggly in Obi-Wan’s mind like it belongs there. “You haven’t been getting them?” Jango asks, just as slow, glancing at Yan warningly.

“No, I... When did they start?”

“Three years back,” he repeats, “after... Kriff knows, there was a cave? Full of kyber. And then every night since then.”

Heart dropping to his stomach, Obi-Wan looks desperately to Yan for some sort of explanation, for some sort of easy answer to any of this, but Yan is clenching his jaw in just as much confusion as he. “Perhaps... we should continue this conversation at the Temple. Perhaps the Council will have more answers.”

“Kriff that, I’m not going to your stupid temple,” Jango snaps, drawing Obi-Wan’s eye to the scar through his eyebrow, why is the Force picking and choosing details—?

“How did you find us?” Obi-Wan interrupts whatever verbal sparring Jango hopes to start.

Jango continues to glare at Yan, but his posture is open where he faces Obi-Wan, implicit trust he doesn’t have time to contend with at the moment. “A dream. Some bald guy in a bathrobe said the planet Lom, that you would both be here. No one’s ever come back from the Lom ruins in one piece, and, kid, I’ve seen how kriffing reckless you are.”

“I’m not _reckless,”_ Obi-Wan immediately argues, but doesn’t get much further when Yan puts a hand on his shoulder and floods his mind with calm. 

“Peace, Obi-Wan, this is not the time nor the place. In situations such as these, when we do not have all the facts, we must regroup and make sense of the facts that we do.”

“And I’m sure you know all about checking facts,” Jango hisses, and ah, Jango recognises his grandmaster from Galidraan; but then, why shouldn’t he?

Yan leans back, eyes wide as he takes in the Mando before him with new understanding. “Fett.”

Jango must possess incredible control, Obi-Wan thinks, to not have tried to kill Yan on sight. “Pleased to meet you properly,” he spits, and Obi-Wan tightens his grip on Jango’s wrist.

Impossibly, it works, Jango visibly backing down enough that Obi-Wan can step sort of between them.

“Jango, come back to the Temple with us.” The Mando jerks at his name, and oh, had they not introduced themselves yet? “I truthfully have no idea why you’re getting these dreams, and we won’t sort it out standing in a Sith ruin.”

Jango’s hand clenches into a fist, but still he does not try to pull away. “You want to take a Mandalorian to the biggest Jedi temple in the Galaxy?”

Dha seems to laugh as Obi-Wan pushes on. “No harm will come to you while under my protection,” he says softly, and means it more personally than he expected to. “Not that the Jedi would attempt to do so.”

“You’ll forgive me if your track record shows otherwise.”

With a gentle nudge from Dha, Obi-Wan sighs in Mando’a, _“Come to the temple, Jango.”_ Surprise softens Jango’s glare, and it’s a shame no vision on Ilum had shown him smiling. “You planned on finding me there before Lom, didn’t you?”

Sighing harshly, Jango still caves easily. “I’m taking my own ship, I don’t trust your bucket of bolts to even get out of atmo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops this one was a little late! this chapter fought me tooth and nail and i'm still not satisfied with it, but jangobi finally meet! and dha is all about it!
> 
> also for a visual, this Obi has Moulin Rouge Ewan hair. because like. i'm gay?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kriff, this probably makes him a terrorist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Mando’a:**  
>  _ad/e_ — “child/ren”, gender neutral  
>  _“Aliit ori'shya tal'din”_ — “Family is more than blood”  
>  _jetii_ — “Jedi” sing, pl. _jetiise_  
>  _tihaar_ — a strong clear spirit usually made from fruit  
>  _shebs_ — “backside”, “rear”, slang for “ass”  
>  _shabuir/e_ — an extreme insult, mostly accepted in fandom to be an insult of an individual’s ability to parent (from _buir/e),_ which is an intrinsic part of Mandalorian psyche and identity  
>  _Mand’alor_ — “Sole ruler”, contended ruler of Mandalore.  
>  _Manda’yaim_ — the planet Mandalore  
>  _Haat Mando’ad/e_ — lit. “true child/ren of Mandalore”, True Mandalorian/s (slang shortened to _Haat'ad/e_ )  
>  _kih’jetii_ — “Little Jedi”, highly offensive  
>  _“Haat, ijaa, haa’it”_ — “Truth, honor, vision”, words to swear on a pact or promise  
>  _‘kad_ — slang shortened form of _jetii’kad_ “lightsaber”, lit. “Jedi’s saber”  
>  _dar’manda_ — a state of not being Mandalorian, a Mandalorian that has lost their heritage and therefore themselves

Dha cackles when Obi-Wan confiscates Jango’s blasters at a side entrance to the Temple, because Dha is horrible and seems to think dealing with Jango is his way of atoning for some slight against his ‘saber that he isn’t even aware of. Obi-Wan has to think really hard about _not_ thinking about the ease with which Jango hands over his westar-34s, the sort of trust that implies.

Yan is the one to suggest perhaps not walking an armoured Mandalorian right through the main hall, especially with all the rumours of a Fall surrounding Obi-Wan; Jango is all for seeing as few Jedi as possible, and Obi-Wan just hopes this isn’t one of the rare times his former master is Temple-bound. He would very much like to avoid having to explain... any of this to Qui-Gon “Force Prophecy” Jinn.

They actually make it all the way to the elevators before Obi-Wan senses Anakin’s nova-bright Force signature, speeding through the halls right for them. He sighs in acceptance of his fate, pulling to a stop. 

He doesn’t even get the chance to turn around fully before Anakin is slamming into him with the force of a missile, knocking the breath out of Obi-Wan as he wraps his bony twelve year-old arms around him. 

“Obi-Wan!” he yells into Obi-Wan’s chest, only slightly muffled by thick robes.

“Yes, hello, Anakin,” Obi-Wan laughs breathlessly, running a hand over Anakin’s padawan spikes, and is glad to see Qui-Gon had finally done away with the nerf tail. 

Pulling away just enough to grin up at him, Anakin all but vibrates in the Force, Dha chirping and trilling as if conversing with Anakin’s signature, and Obi-Wan notes his eyes have grown even lighter in shade. He wonders if Qui-Gon has noticed.

“You didn’t tell me you’d be back so soon!” 

Obi-Wan feels Jango’s confusion and Yan’s amusement even from across the hall, and Oh Force, he doesn’t want to explain this to Anakin “The Chosen One” Skywalker, either. “I’m afraid something came up, padawan; we have to speak to the council earlier than anticipated,” he says, knowing Anakin is going to hold this over him for _months._

Indeed, Anakin scrunches his entire face as if he’s smelled something particularly horrible and grips even more determinedly to Obi-Wan’s robes. “You didn’t even come say hello.” He frowns, going all tooka-eyed, but Obi-Wan is immune to such tactics.

He snorts and gently untangles Anakin’s hands. “I didn’t even know you were in the Temple, Anakin; when I say we must speak to the council, I mean urgently.”

“But I could feel you as soon as you got here!” he whines, all but stomping his feet and Obi-Wan can’t help but laugh at the display. 

“Not all are as attuned to the Force as you, my dear Ani. Now, I’m sure you’re supposed to be in classes, this early in the day; what poor master did you leave without warning?”

Grumbling, Anakin lets Obi-Wan step away and doesn’t even slap his hand away when he tugs at his quickly-growing braid. “Master Ti in astronavigation.”

“Hm, then please return to her and apologise properly,” he orders with a smile, tucking Anakin's braid behind his ear. “I promise I won’t leave without seeing you first.”

“Ugh, fine. You’re the worst brother padawan.”

“Don’t let Xanatos hear you, he’d be rather furious if I came for his title.”

“Xanatos is dead, though, Obi-Wan.” And Anakin laughs, quite inappropriately if you didn’t know the sorts of stories Obi-Wan has been telling him. 

“And even those returned to the Force can hear when they are being slandered.” He spins Anakin around and gives him a push back down the hall. “Now, back to Master Ti to beg for forgiveness.”

“Fine, but you have to tell me about Dagobah later!” Anakin gives him one last grin before shooting off around the nearest corner, his nova-warmth leaving a golden trail behind him.

Obi-Wan shakes his head fondly and rejoins Yan and Jango at the elevator. Jango has one eyebrow raised while Yan holds open the door, and if Obi-Wan didn’t know better, he’d almost think the Mando _smiling._

“‘Didn’t think the Jedi were allowed _ade,”_ he says, unapologetic even when Obi-Wan chokes on nothing.

“Anakin is not my _son.”_ He glares for emphasis, as Yan chuckles unhelpfully. 

_“Aliit ori'shya tal'din,”_ Jango returns with a shrug. Jabbing the control panel with perhaps too much force, Obi-Wan ignores them both the rest of the way to the council chambers.

Once they reach the doors, though, Obi-Wan slows to a stop and looks to his grandmaster. “You did tell them we were bringing someone, didn’t you?”

“Of course, my grandpadawan: I mentioned Mr. Fett when I turned our darksider friend over to the Shadows.”

“But did you tell _Master Windu.”_

Yan blinks, then allows an almost cruel smile to cross his lips. “I suppose I did not. Well, they’ve surely sensed him by now, there is nothing we can do to change the past.”

“You did this on purpose,” Obi-Wan mutters, but follows Yan when the doors open and beckon them inside. 

The council chamber is utterly silent as they take in the frankly ridiculous trio they make, and Jango meets each of the master’s gazes without even an ounce of fear leaking into the Force; Obi-Wan supposes once you’ve killed six Jedi with your bare hands, there isn’t much left to fear of them. And the masters have far too much control for Obi-Wan to tell what they’re thinking, but he’s played this game before, and he will not be the one to break the silence.

Finally, Master Windu exhales slowly and flicks his eyes between Jango and Obi-Wan. “Tell me, Knight Kenobi, is it your intention to continuously report back from simple missions by bringing me walking shatterpoints?”

It’s probably a good thing that Windu had shaved his head before Obi-Wan was a padawan, or he really would have lost his hair after Cerasi, after Anakin, after Darth Maul and Rret So. Jango is only one in a long line of slights against Mace Windu's hairline. 

“Please trust that it confuses me perhaps even more than you, Master,” he offers with a small smile, and gets a fond little laugh from Windu as he sits up in his chair properly. 

“Welcome to the Coruscant Temple,” he greets Jango, not offended when he says nothing. “I can imagine the discomfort you must feel here, and can only offer the assurance that no harm will come to you within our walls. We will attempt to resolve whatever issue or grievance you have with us as quickly as possible, so you do not have to remain longer than necessary.”

Obi-Wan winces as Jango scoffs. “I come for answers, not reparations, _jetii.”_

Several masters’ brows shoot up, but Windu remains impassive. “Then I imagine this has something to do with Knight Kenobi.”

Yan nudges against Obi-Wan’s mind, urging him forward as if he has even half the answers everyone in the room seeks. “Masters,” he begins with a small sigh, “Jango Fett was able to track Master Yan and I to the planet Lom, through visions of my own memories.”

Mutters break out, Master Rancisis not waiting for them to die before cutting in, “He is not Force sensitive,” he grumbles, curling and uncurling his appendages. 

“No, he is as close to Force null as I’ve ever encountered,” Yan agrees, Jango shifting his weight uncomfortably. “His connection to my grandpadawan seems to be linked through his ‘saber and its creation.”

“Been having dreams often, have you?” Yoda asks.

Jango frowns down at him as if uncomfortable to be addressed again so quickly. “None have been my own for three years.”

“Dreams of Knight Kenobi, they are? His memories?”

He nods tightly. “I did not realise what they were at first, ‘thought I drank the wrong cup of _tihaar.”_ He glances at Obi-Wan, so quick he almost misses it. “I’ve lived moments from all over his life.”

“I believe it started when I was at Ilum,” Obi-Wan adds softly, almost not wanting to draw attention back to himself. 

More mutters and grumbles, and Master Windu looks genuinely distressed by the thought. No one speaks of the visions they receive in the caves, not a padawan to their master, not a master to the Council; the trial of finding a kyber to match one’s journey is far too personal an experience to air out in the open, and even Yan has never asked about Dha’s creation. It just isn’t done.

“Kenobi,” Windu begins carefully, folding his hands in front of his lips. “You know we would not ask you lightly, to recount what last you saw at Ilum, and no one in or outside this chamber can force you to do so. However, there are pieces to this puzzle in your visions, that I fear we cannot proceed without.”

Obi-Wan inhales slowly. “I know, master.”

“Unusual circumstances these are, hrm, consider them carefully you should. Yes, back what is said aloud you cannot take.”

“I understand, masters.” He bows shallowly to them. “I accept and submit to your questions.”

“Obi-Wan,” Yan warns lightly, knowing better than most the sort of mental state Obi-wan had been in before his knighting. 

“It’s alright, Yan,” he murmurs back, and shoots Jango a reassuring smile when he realises he probably has no idea what’s going on. “My visions at Ilum have always been rather... vivid,” he says to the council at large, to a few nods of understanding from those that had known of Obi-Wan’s tutelage under Yoda as an initiate. “Three years ago, they were as clear as if I was living them.”

Yoda lays his staff across his lap and leans forward.“What in them did you see, Knight Kenobi?” 

“Myself. Different versions of myself, different paths my life could have taken, and perhaps in some version of our universe they did. Dha was... was in a few of them.”

Windu taps his fingers over his lips slowly, eyes flicking around Obi-Wan but never directly at him. “Did you think they were prophetic?”

“No,” he says immediately. “I believed them only to be connected to my Trial of Insight, as Master Yoda predicted.”

Master Billaba hmms. “And Jango Fett, did you see him as well?”

Swallowing once, Obi-Wan nods. “In a few versions of my life. I did not meet him in this one until Lom.”

Jango scowls and shifts his helmet to his hip. “And you’re telling me you haven’t dreamt once since then?”

Windu pins Obi-Wan with his gaze, the sudden intensity making something inside him curl away and beat against his ribs for escape. “Is this true, Kenobi?”

“Ye... Yes, masters. I have had dreamless sleep since Ilum.”

“You have not mentioned this before,” Yan rumbles, frown so deep it warps the kind lines of his face. 

“I did not think it relevant?”

“You were once very strong in the Unifying Force, Obi-Wan,” Plo Koon finally speaks. “You have had visions, especially in dreams since you were a crèchling; this sudden loss did not concern you?”

If anything, it had been a relief. “So much had happened so quickly that I...”

“Relieved, were you?” Yoda asks softly.

“Yes, Master Yoda," he admits with a sigh, "My Trial of Insight was far more difficult than anything Darth Maul had put me through; I was relieved I did not have to make room in my memories for other Obi-Wan Kenobis that do not exist.”

“Knight Kenobi, in the weeks preceding the Invasion of Naboo,” Billaba cuts in as Obi-Wan flinches, “you had dreams of Darth Maul nearly every night, anyone with Dream Empathy could feel it.”

“This felt different—” he starts, but halts as she raises her hand. 

“Ilum does not put us through idle maybes, and perhaps events do not unfold exactly as we had seen them, but with your history of precognition, it would be foolish to discount them completely.”

“Master,” he tries again, “I did not think them relevant past my Trial.”

“Well, that’s your kriffing master’s fault,” Jango scoffs suddenly, terror locking Obi-Wan’s limbs. “I’ve seen the way he’s talked about your visions.”

“That’s different,” Obi-Wan says, as if he can’t feel the startled horror from several council members. “My... bad feelings and Ilum are not the same—”

“You knew Cerasi would die at Melida/Daan.” Raising a brow, Jango dares him to argue. “You warned him of what you’d seen, and he dismissed you because he expected you to return to the Temple with him and didn't think it would be an issue.”

Feeling as if the breath had been knocked from his lungs, Obi-Wan can only stare at him, because it is very different acknowledging someone else having his memories, and witnessing it first hand. He had never told anyone but Qui-Gon about Cerasi, about watching her die ten different ways, about— failing to save her ten different ways.

And Jango _keeps going._ “You were stranded on Yaccac for a tenday because your master did not believe you that the caves would collapse. When you were sent to rescue that Nautolan _jetii,_ Jinn told you not to listen to anything you had dreamt or seen, even when the _jetii_ was trapped in the first building you told him to check. Different, my _shebs.”_

There had been other things going on, other stresses, they had been on the run from the local police force at the time, they didn’t have _time_ to rely only on his visions–

“Your _shabuir_ of a master only survived Naboo because you warned him of the Zabrak’s plan to separate you at the plasma shields.” Jango twists his mouth, clearly having some feelings about that. “And then claimed it had been the ‘will of the Force’.”

“Obi-Wan,” Yan interrupts, reminding them that this conversation is far from private, with the entire council barely veiling their shock and even Master Mundi holding his tongue. 

Windu drags a hand over his face and up over head, a wrecked sort of exhaustion sagging his shoulders — Obi-Wan prays uselessly that he won't ask. “Knight Kenobi,” he starts softly, “did Qui-Gon Jinn tell you to stop coming to Master Yoda once you were his apprentice?”

Obi-Wan clenches his jaw, because that’s hardly fair, he had been bothering Master Yoda for years, and an apprentice must rely on their Master before all others. “He did not want me to linger on them,” he admits just as quietly, “that I should focus on the Living Force.”

“He once told you you weren’t trying hard enough to forget your visions,” Jango growls at him, full of a righteous anger that makes Obi-Wan flinch and Dha skitter, “and to ‘live in the now’ if you ever wanted to reach knighthood.”

He has to close his eyes to not witness the moment the masters realise there is no lie in Jango’s words, that Obi-Wan cannot deny them. Kriff, this isn't going anything like Obi-Wan had hoped, but then again, when had anything?

“Obi-Wan,” Billaba asks gently, waiting for Obi-Wan to open his eyes, “When was this said?”

“Just before we were asked by Chancellor Valorum to negotiate with the Trade Federation,” he says to the tiled floor.

The Force quakes with the sudden spike of anger and guilt, and it is somehow impossibly _Yan_ that has to take a moment to reign his emotions back in, before bowing to the Council. "If you'll pardon my premature departure, I have a former padawan to locate and chastise."

“Yan,” Obi-Wan snaps.

“He also replaced you as soon as Skywalker came along.”

“That’s not helping, Jango—”

Yoda carefully hops down to the floor, the quiet that follows all the louder with Dha trilling sharply in the back of his mind. Yoda hobbles his way to Obi-Wan, tapping his staff on the floor once, and Obi-Wan kneels to meet him; he should honestly be used to the ancient eyes that regard him with more history than he could ever hope to share, he’s been under Yoda’s watch since he was six standard years, but Obi-Wan still feels as stripped-bare as he did back then. 

“Cut your hair you do, so look like him you do not.” It is not a question, and Yoda accepts Obi-Wan’s silence as answer. “Wear colours you do, that Qui-Gon Jinn would not. Deny this, do you, Knight Kenobi?”

“No,” he murmurs, and watches with horror as Yoda physically deflates, leaning harder on his staff. 

“Hrm, failed you, it seems we have. Unaware that you had not outgrown your precognition, I was. Stifled your abilities should have not, yes, or fumbling for answers now perhaps we would not be, hrrrm?” Yoda pokes his staff against Obi-Wan’s chest. “Much more to know than is seen now there is, yes. Have the answer to Jango Fett's dreams we do not, but connected you are. Yes, hrrmmm. In the Dagobah inscription perhaps the answer lies?”

Obi-Wan fumbles for something, anything to say, and his traitorous brain lands on, “But if I cannot read it—”

“Into Rret So the Council will continue to look, yes. But another avenue you have now, hrm?” He gestures bodily to Jango, somehow both amused and expectant in his glare at Obi-Wan. “Hrmm, yes, interesting this will be.”

Bewildered, Obi-Wan isn’t properly aware of himself again until the council has ushered him and Jango out of the chamber to discuss something Yan had found about the darksiders on Lom, and even then, Obi-Wan is more confused than when he’d entered. 

“Well, that went well,” Jango chirps as he settles against a wall in the little waiting area. “I didn’t think anyone could be as infuriatingly vague as Dooku, but the _jetiise_ do love proving me wrong.”

_Forward,_ Dha whispers in Mando’a, insistent but holding themselves back from influencing Obi-Wan’s decisions directly. Just suggestions. _Mand’alor, forward forward Manda’yaim, forward—_

“Shut up,” he mutters, a headache building at his temples; Jango scoffs in offense, and Obi-Wan realises he had said it out loud. “Not you,” he adds uselessly. 

“You’ve been in my head for three years, I really should be used to how kriffing strange you are.”

Obi-Wan frowns, trying to shove Dha further back in his mind _—Mand’alor, duty, forward forward,_ they plead— and focus on Jango. “I can hardly be blamed for that; the Force was the one to put me there.”

“Ah, right. The Force.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Jango raises one brow to tell him just what he thinks of that. _Duty,_ Dha insists, trying to close the space between Obi-Wan and Jango. “What did the frog troll mean by Dagobah inscription?”

He opens his mouth to respond, but Dha throws subtlety out the window and slams against his shields so hard they crack, a rather confusing assortment of images forcing themselves through the gaps—

_a mythosaur skull dripping blood, a Mando in red and black armour, the marrow-chilling breeze of a desert night and the warmth of a body at his side, Jango without his helmet holding the red and black Mando as he bleeds out in his arms, fire, fire, a mythosaur closing its jaws around his arm, Anakin screaming, fire and fire and a mythosaur skull etched into the underside of Jango’s chestplate—_

Oh. Mand’alor.

“Hey, kid, you with me?” Jango grits, and Dha is screaming at him, but Obi-Wan can somehow focus on Jango’s frown better than he’s ever been able to focus on Dha.

“I’m coming with you to _Manda’yaim.”_

“Excuse me?”

Obi-Wan winces, but the Force is all but shoving him at this man, at his future, and Obi-Wan has been commanded by the Force since before he first opened his eyes. “I’m coming with you, to help you reclaim _Mand’alor.”_

Flabbergasted is a rather amusing expression on a hardened warrior — _on Mand’alor,_ Dha laughs— and Obi-Wan supposes this is sort of out of nowhere, but at least it's just as surprising for the both of them. 

“Kid,” Jango growls, “I haven’t been back to Mandalore since Galidraan. What, _by the_ _Force,_ makes you think I want to be Mand’alor?”

“Everything,” he shrugs honestly, and he must have been thinking about this subconsciously since Jango had landed in front of him on Lom, because he cannot see any other path before him. The Force does not sing as it does around Anakin, but neither has it ever flowed so smoothly between him and another as it does between him and Jango, and fate really must be laughing at him. “The Duchy has sat too long, Death Watch only grows stronger, and the _Haat Mando’ade_ need a leader. It is not a matter of want, Jango Fett: it is a matter of when.”

“Listen here, _kih’jetii,_ ” Jango snarls, getting right in his face but only proving to illustrate that they are perfectly eye-level, and out of his boots, Jango would be slightly shorter than him. Hm. “You may have ended up with a kriffing darksaber somehow, but that does not make you _Mando’ad._ I don’t know where the kriff you even heard about me, if I haven’t been in your head like you’ve been in mine, but this is not something you can just stick your _jetii_ fingers into—”

“I would not do it for the Jedi.”

Jango scoffs again, searching for some sort of answer in his eyes, and Obi-Wan isn’t sure if he finds it.

_“Haat, ijaa, haa’it, Jango,”_ he whispers, Mando’a falling off his tongue as if he’s always spoken it, smoother than he ever did in Master Nu’s lessons. “I will see you to Mand’alor.”

“Y’know, when Skywalker said you brought a guest, I wasn’t expecting Dha’s Mando,” Quinlan announces, Obi-Wan jerking away from Jango as the outside world rushes back to him — and so does his headache.

“Quinlan,” Obi-Wan sighs, his best friend planting himself beside them with his hands innocently clutched behind his back, rocking on the balls of his feet. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, Obes, what else would I be doing? Skywalker said you had to talk to the Council, and, y’know, considering the last time, I wanted to make sure you were alright.” He side-eyes Jango, but it’s not unkind, simply curious and unwilling to be the first to ask.

Jango glares back, knuckles white as he grips his helmet. “‘The last time’?” he grits out, and almost sounds worried.

Obi-Wan only manages not to flinch by locking every joint in his body, looking away until he can convince himself he isn’t still holding Rret So’s corpse knee-deep in Dagobah’s swamps. 

Both Quinlan and Jango twitch towards him, and then immediately glare at each other, and Obi-Wan just wants _one day_ where anything makes sense. Honestly, maybe he should have left the Order after Ilum—

Dha screeches loud enough that Jango and Quinlan startle, and Obi-Wan’s headache increases to a steady pound. _Duty,_ Dha snaps in reprimand, knocking at his shields but not trying to break through them again. _Forward._

Forward to Mandalore it is, then. 

“Was that your kriffing _sword?”_

“Saber,” Obi-Wan corrects automatically, even though Dha would never call themselves something so ordinary. “Usually others can’t hear them.”

Jango is both concerned and perplexed as he looks from Obi-Wan’s belt up to his face. “Your _‘kad_ speaks to you?”

Obi-Wan winces. “Sort of.”

“Sure, why not, this whole kriffing situation is already so weird.”

“This guy bothering you?” Quinlan jokes to Obi-Wan, and he would rather sleep for the next year.

There’s a great shuffling on the other side of the wall, the council breaking their session; Yan’s presence brushes against his in question, perhaps he had sensed Dha’s unrest, but Obi-Wan honestly doesn’t know what to tell him.

A sly grin crosses Quinlan’s face that immediately sets off all of Obi-Wan’s alarms. “‘Guess I shouldn’t be surprised you somehow found the missing Mand’alor; you already had a thing for Mandalorian rulers, didn’t you, Obi?”

Ah. That could have perhaps been phrased better.

“If you mean that _dar’manda_ Kryze,” Jango drawls, “you need to rethink your definition of ‘ruler’.”

And Jango would have seen at least some of Obi-Wan’s year on Mandalore. With Satine. A Republic-sanctioned planetary leader who Obi-Wan had just sworn to dethrone. Kriff, this probably makes him a terrorist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woof this one was difficult, but cute ani!! and punching qui-gon next chapter!! obi-wan is now a republic terroist!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bo-Katan watches with her lips parted, brows pinched, and Tor wishes he could blame the messenger for bringing him this, when Skirata had kriffing sworn Fett had died on that freighter–
> 
> “Mand’alor,” Bo-Katan interrupts his wallowing, “is that a darksaber?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Mando'a:**  
>  _Manda’yaim_ — the planet Mandalore  
>  _naak_ — “peace”, “calm down” (intentionally used in place of the more casual _Udesii)_  
>  _ba’buir_ — “grandparent”  
>  _Haat Mando’ade_ — lit. “true children of Mandalore”, True Mandalorians (slang shortened to _Haat'ad/e)_  
>  _mandokarla_ — the epitome of Mando virtue, a mix of zeal, tenacity, loyalty and aggression  
>  _Resol’nare_ — “Six Actions”, the six tenets guiding Mando life  
>  _gal_ — “booze”, usually specifically a Mandalorian ale.  
>  _kih’jetii_ — “Little Jedi”, highly offensive
> 
> ***minor retcon/edit corrected and bolded 2/22/21***

The image of a bleeding mythosaur skull feels imprinted on the back of his eyes, and Obi-Wan is sure Dha has something to do with it, but he can’t fathom what cycling it through his mind like a holoreel is accomplishing. Mythosaurs have been extinct for milenia, it’s not as if it’s a vision of the future, and it can’t be as simple as Dha telling him he’ll find an intact skull when they actually make it to _Manda’yaim._

He knows his companions are watching him in concern, that Quinlan walks a step too close as if expecting him to fall over and that Yan is pressed up against his shields trying to support them; that Jango can’t know quite what is going on but he glances knowingly to him still. Now if Dha would just shut up.

_Rude,_ they murmur, but do quiet, taking their mythosaur with them so Obi-Wan can focus back on the halls of the Temple, Yan guiding them towards his barely-used quarters to catch Quinlan up on all that he had missed. It’s just approaching thirdmeal, the halls busier than normal with initiates and padawans getting out of lessons, with masters making their way to the various commissaries before the knights can flood them.

Jedi are not supposed to gossip, are not meant to stare or titter at the rare sight of both Obi-Wan and Yan in the Temple at the same time. This, of course, stops absolutely nobody from whispering about the strange Mandalorian accompanying them, or Quinlan and his comfortable whistling. Obi-Wan is just thankful for Yan’s fortification of his shields: he honestly doesn’t know how strong they actually are right now.

Which is perhaps why it takes him until Anakin is simply a corner away before he senses his nova-warmth, the boy all but burning among the weaker signatures crowding the halls. It eases his heart, the distracting pounding in his chest, and though Anakin’s energy often outmatches his, he still looks forward to seeing him properly.

Obi-Wan falters when he realises who is accompanying Anakin to thirdmeal. And he is surrounded by the three people that know him best, besides Anakin, those that catch onto his hesitance immediately and search out the source before Obi-Wan can assure them he’s fine.

Their question is answered, anyways, when Anakin rounds the corner from the training floors with Qui-Gon Jinn at his side, Anakin chattering up to his master about his day as Qui-Gon listens with a soft smile on his face.

That pounding starts again, slow and harsh: he hasn’t spoken to Qui-Gon for more than a moment since they were on the transport back to the Temple from Naboo, and Qui-Gon had been rather drugged up at the time, slurring apologies with pleads for Obi-Wan to train Anakin, to make sure the Council accepted him. Obi-Wan has seen Qui-Gon twice since Ilum, both times so quick it had barely been a greeting, both with someplace else to be. Qui-Gon hasn’t sought him out even once.

His old master looks up in surprise when he catches onto their presence, and his smile widens, taking in Yan and Obi-Wan with more than courtesy happiness, but Obi-Wan cannot match his smile.

Next to him, Jango’s arm twitches, and Obi-Wan doesn’t catch on to what he’s doing in time to stop him from reeling back and _punching his master in the face._

Qui-Gon doesn’t make a sound as he stumbles back, hand darting up to his bleeding nose as all conversation in the hall ceases; Obi-Wan wonders what sorts of rumours circulated the Temple about his apprenticeship and the way it ended, and what they'll look like after today. 

Obi-Wan automatically grabs Jango by his left arm and the back of his flightsuit, with just enough strength to stop him from swinging again. “Jango!” he snaps, tightening his grip when Jango tests his hold. Kriff, this is why he took his blasters.

Qui-Gon blinks around at them all, settling on Yan who simply looks down his nose at his former apprentice with a sneer far less kind than the one he uses for Obi-Wan. He does nothing at the sight of blood welling up around Qui-Gon’s fingers, and Quinlan swings his arms up behind his head, perfectly relaxed as if nothing had happened,

“...That is one way to say hello,” Qui-Gon finally says, voice muffled, and Obi-Wan feels like a padawan again, feels like he had when trapped behind rotating plasma doors and separated from a master that would not wait for him. 

Jango snarls and tries to take another step forward, but Obi-Wan digs in his heels and tightens his grip on the back of his collar. _“Naak, Jango,”_ he hisses, skin prickling under all the eyes on them, under how public this conversation really is.

And yet, no one steps forward to diffuse the situation or to mitigate, the other Jedi in the hall standing aside as if knowing this is something more than a simple misunderstanding. When even Yan, perfectly civil Yan, doesn’t reprimand Jango or try to explain, Qui-Gon’s eyes narrow. 

“You would allow this in the Temple?” he asks quietly, more a feeling than words that has Anakin shuffling his feet.

Yan raises a single brow, arms behind his back placidly. “Are you implying I have any sort of control over our guest?”

Jango snorts in agreement as Obi-Wan sighs, “Yan, that isn’t helping.”

Qui-Gon’s gaze darts between them suspiciously, and Maker, Obi-Wan just wants to lie down. “You let him call you Yan?”

He can’t help flinching under the implication, that he is still unworthy. That even as a knight, even as The Sith Slayer, he still disappoints him. “Master,” he pleads softly, “now is really not the time—”

“Don’t call him that,” Jango snaps, rage saturating the space between them until Obi-Wan is sure even those in the towers will be able to feel it. Anakin nods emphatically from Qui-Gon’s side where his master can’t see him, which just confuses Obi-Wan’s headache even more. “He’s lost that right.”

“Obi-Wan, who is this?”

Quinlan cuts in before Obi-Wan can answer, still looking relaxed but with tension sparking in his eyes, “That’s not really any of your business, Master Jinn.”

“It is when your guest is instigating fights within the Temple—”

“That wasn’t a fight,” Jango growls, jerking against Obi-Wan’s grip again, “That was a warning.”

Obi-Wan had rarely had the pleasure of Qui-Gon investing himself in something enough to be truly _angry,_ but Jango must have struck some sort of chord, flipped some sort of switch, because Qui-Gon _glares_ at him. Obi-Wan is thankful he has never been on the other side of that glare.

“I see you’ve trained yourself quite the attack dog, Obi-Wan,” he chides, Obi-Wan immediately dropping his gaze under the ridicule. But Dha _screams_ at him, for him, and Obi-Wan feels something jump in the Force, knows everyone in the hall can feel it; he doesn’t know if it’s Anakin’s doing or his own, but even Jango looks at him, and their audience holds their breath.

Dha’s screams are untranslatable, Obi-Wan isn’t sure what exactly they’re wanting him to do, so he lets his own rage tumble from his lips. “You don’t get to speak to him like that,” Obi-Wan says softly, vaguely aware that the hush around them extends far further into the Temple than immediately around them, as he trembles under standing up to his master for the first time since that day boarding the Royal Naboo transport. Since Qui-Gon had chosen Anakin over him.

The silence stretches like Rodian taffy, thick and acrid, until Yan takes a small step forward.

“You should visit the Halls, Qui-Gon,” he says, and Obi-Wan realises he isn’t holding Jango back so much as just holding himself steady on him. He gingerly pries his numb fingers from Jango’s arm. “You’re getting blood on the floor.”

Anakin meets Obi-Wan’s gaze for the first time, or perhaps Obi-Wan meets his, and his brother padawan gives a determined nod before tugging on Qui-Gon’s sleeve. “C’mon, Master, let’s just go.”

Despite being livid at the idea of a child feeling like they have to remind an adult to get a hold of themselves, Obi-Wan lets Anakin keep tugging until Qui-Gon relents, because he really isn’t sure what he’s going to say if they keep going on like this.

Qui-Gon seems to only just notice their audience, bowing stiffly to Yan and actually managing not to glare, but the shreds of their learning bond, cut prematurely by Maul's lightstaff, tells Obi-Wan just how confused and disappointed he is; something in Obi-Wan crumbles a little, for all he attempts to not let it bother him.

All at once, the crowd disperses without even a mutter, Temple residents returning to their lives as Qui-Gon returns to his, following his padawan towards the Halls of Healing.

With a short inhale, Yan corrals them all to his quarters with a grumble about tea with something quite strong in it, and Obi-Wan could have done without the concerned glances from Quinlan, but he’s glad they actually manage not to be stopped again. 

Yan taps in the door code and ushers Quinlan and Jango inside, but pauses outside with Obi-Wan. His grandmaster hmms and brushes his fingers gently over Obi-Wan’s jaw, which he only just now realises how tightly he had been clenching it.

“Forward?” Yan asks quietly.

Obi-Wan forces breath into his lungs, forces his hurt away from his heart until he can think clearly enough to murmur back, “Only forward.”

"That does indeed make you a terrorist, grandpadawan," Yan rumbles, and Obi-Wan sort of wants to drown himself in his Corellian brandy-spiked tea. 

Quinlan shoves a few cookies in his mouth, all too content to have _not_ spent the last hourtrying to explain how he’s planning to go against the Republic because a semi-sentient sword told him to. Jango stands leant in the doorway to Yan’s sitting room, refusing to join them at the floor table, though it’s not as if any of them are particularly surprised. Obi-Wan thinks he’s missing out on Yan’s very expensive alcohol.

“Mandalore isn’t part of the Republic,” Quinlan says around a Tatooine sweetcake that Anakin had made for them on their last visit to the Temple. 

“No, but they helped put the Duchy in power,” Obi-Wan sighs, “And specifically Satine.”

Yan strokes his beard in agreement. “The Senate has only recently begun talks for access to the beskar mines, to have the culture return to their warrior past would certainly end those talks. To unseat Duchess Satine with a Mand’alor would only be a shade off a declaration of war.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t need to look up from his hands to feel Jango’s rising anger, but if he really has been watching his life every night for three years, he should know Obi-Wan isn’t going to back down easily. Or at all, not from something this important. 

“You seem very sure I’m going to go along with this bantha-brained scheme of yours,” Jango bites. “And I told you before: I’m not Mand’alor, nor do I want to be. I’m not a fool, kid.”

_“And only a fool eats their own tongue,”_ Obi-Wan mutters in Mando’a, Dha giving a startled laugh as Jango looks down at him in bemusement. “What?”

“No one talks like that anymore.” He shakes his head, crossing his arms. “I don’t know what that librarian was teaching you, but your accent makes you sound like my _ba’buir.”_

Quinlan takes advantage of Obi-Wan’s miffed silence to butt in, “Yeah, all this history is well and good, but do you even have a plan, Obes? It’s not like you can just march on Sundari with an army of two.” It goes unsaid that neither he nor Yan will be joining Obi-Wan on this venture, that they _can’t_ with their positions in the Order, and Obi-Wan would never ask them to. 

So he looks up to Jango, tucking his hands into his sleeves. “Did you regain contact with any of the Haat’ade after you escaped the spice freighter?”

Still in disbelief that this conversation is even happening, Jango shakes his head again. “I still speak to two of my old commandos, but Maker knows if they would answer my call.”

“They will. We’ll start there, then.”

“You’re forgetting that I don’t want to be Mand’alor.”

Obi-Wan casts him a glare. “And you’re forgetting that until you find a replacement and abdicate your position, you don’t have a choice. The Haat’ade still follow Fett, even if he has not called on them in a decade. And the people do not give up their _‘alor_ easily.”

“That probably means something important,” Quinlan muses, elbowing Yan. “Master Grumpy, what does that mean?”

Yan gives him a withering look down his nose. “The Mand’alor is the body of the people,” he explains, when it’s clear neither Obi-Wan nor Jango are going to stop glaring at each other long enough to answer. “Blood lineages or dynasties are next to non-existent with the Foundling Creeds, but there also hasn’t historically been time for a democratic voting system, not with a nomadic warrior people. Jo believes there is a Force element, in how and who Mandalorians choose to rally behind, who they give their _mandokarla_ to. Before the... defeat at Galidraan, the last of the True Mandalorians rallied behind Fett,” he gives a small nod to Jango, “and as long as he is alive and keeps to the Resol’nare, they will follow him until he dies or abdicates.”

Jango snaps his glare to Yan, and Obi-Wan supposes he could have been a little more tactful in his bringing up Galidraan. “There’s hardly any _Haat Mando’ade_ left, we were virtually wiped out,” Jango snaps. 

Dha warms at the small of Obi-Wan’s back, gently prodding at his mind and encouraging him to speak his thoughts, what he has suspected since that year on Mandalore. “And you think everyone has just bowed to the duchy, then? Or to Vizsla? That everyone would accept only those options, even the old clans?” Obi-Wan snorts, not fearing the hot metal rage that spikes through the Force. 

And yet Jango’s face remains a simple scowl. “You seem pretty confident in your understanding of a culture and people that _aren't yours.”_

Dha goes ice cold at that, sharp through the back of Obi-Wan’s robes as they hiss warningly at Jango. And Obi-Wan is fairly sure it hadn’t been nearly loud enough for the others to hear, but Jango twitches, glancing around the room warily. 

“You saw enough from that year,” Obi-Wan murmurs, somehow confident that the Force had not skimped on _those_ memories. “You know the part I played in Satine’s rise to power. Did you think I came away from that mission accepting only that which the New Mandalorians taught me?”

Quinlan barks a laugh at that, brushing crumbs from his stubble. “He was taking so many extracurriculars from Master Nu that Master Qui-Gon was actually jealous of how much time he spent on holocall with her on missions.”

“Jo had to contact other temples for new material when you worked through our library so quickly,” Yan hmms in amusement, hands folded under his chin. “She could hardly keep up with you.”

“Yan,” Obi-Wan sighs, pretending his neck isn’t flushed under the praise. Jango is watching him critically again, but with what Obi-Wan hopes is a little more understanding. Dha gives an amorphous wiggle of delight.

“You can only learn so much from a book,” Jango says carefully, and Obi-Wan blinks at him before answering in Mando’a,

_“History is written in the people.”_

Something warm settles in the Force between them, but Jango still sighs. “You can’t get involved, jetii _._ No, _especially_ because you worked so closely with Kryze. _The Republic has made clear what they want from Mandalore, and it isn’t the Haat’ade; if you stick your neck out for this, they will take your head from you. I might not know banthashit about the jetiise, but I know you have a commitment to them as your people just as, you’re right, I have a commitment to mine. You don’t get to throw your lot in with me.”_

Obi-Wan snorts again. _“The Jedi follow the will of the Force, Jango, not the Republic, not as we have been. This is the clearest path the Force has ever shown me, I have no more choice in this than you do.”_

_“That’s kriffing stupid and I hate it.”_

Dha positively bounces off his shields in delight, and Obi-Wan can’t help his startled chuckle. _“I would choose it anyways, ‘alor. The Jedi owe much in reparation to the Mando’ade, and it’s the right thing, to preserve a culture that Satine would rather see burn.”_

Shaking his head in something that could be wonder, disbelief and warmth and gratitude, Jango actually smiles a little. _“You’re as mad as they come, kid.”_

Silence settles over the room for a few beats, but Quinlin is, of course, incapable of staying that way for long. “Yeah, so if you could repeat that all in Basic, that’d be great.”

Obi-Wan blinks at him, because he’s not politically fluent in Mando’a yet, he had focused mostly on history and culture with Master Nu, but this had come easy as Basic to him. Jango’s got a tiny smirk on his lips that hints at something Obi-Wan can’t decipher just yet, and Dha bounces at his mind again.

Yan strokes his beard like he knows something Obi-Wan doesn’t, and he probably does. “Well, perhaps our conversation with the Council tomorrow will lend some insight into how we could proceed without bringing the Republic down on the Temple, hm? And the Jedi do not go in with the intention of battle, not anymore; this is walking a fine line, grandpadawan.”

“I’ve never walked anything else,” Obi-Wan murmurs, a blue sort of warmth edging into his mind. Foreign, yet familiar, he automatically makes a place for it behind his shields, right next to Dha.

* * *

**Scowling at the short holoreel Bo-Katan had delivered without a return address, Tor resists the urge to smash his cup of / _gal_ against the nearest surface. The holo loops again, showing two jetiise in dark robes, the one with their back to the camera with a darksaber _in their grimy little fists,_ slack in their grip like it isn’t bringing Tor’s world down around his ears.**

**The Jedi at their side, though, Tor would recognise the man that had had the pleasure of handing the last Mand’alor over to the governor of Galidraan anywhere, and, Maker, does he recognise the Mando that drops into frame just before the holo repeats.**

**Jango _kriffing_ Fett.**

**Bo-Katan watches with her lips parted, brows pinched, and Tor wishes he could blame the messenger for bringing him this, when Skirata had kriffing sworn Fett had died on that freighter–**

**“Mand’alor,” Bo-Katan interrupts his wallowing, “is that a darksaber?”**

**Tor’s right to rule whines on his belt, he knows no one has taken it from him, but then where had this _jetii_ pup gotten their hands on one? Rage nearly smothers him at the thought they had somehow found Tarre Vizsla’s journals that Tor has spent a lifetime searching for. And when had Fett allied with the karking Jedi?**

**“I want them dead.” He doesn’t look at his second, furious that the holo continues to loop even when he doesn’t want to watch it anymore. “I want their _head_ on a kriffing _platter,_ dropped at Fett’s feet.” He slams his cup onto the table and whirls around. “Send a commando to Coruscant, they aren’t allowed to return until they can tell me who that _kih’jetii_ is and why the _kriff_ Fett looks at them like that.**

**Bo-Katan doesn’t even flinch, snapping a solute. “It is done, Mand’alor,” she says before ducking out of the back room, already barking orders at those still drinking in the bar.**

**Tor turns back to the holo, watching it two more times before he drabs the disk and hurls it against the wall.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the qui-gon punching commences! probably not as much as y'all were wanting, but do not you worry! obi will get a blow in by the end of this.
> 
> more brother padawan bonding in the next one, and more plo, and more jango being gay about weapons.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan smiles innocently up at Jango as he drags a hand down his face. “Jailbait?”
> 
> “Just start the kriffing ship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Mando’a:**  
>  _burc’ya_ — “friend”, also used ironically  
>  _Mand’alor_ — “Sole ruler”, contended ruler of Mandalore.  
>  _“Vode An”_ — “Brothers All” (a Mando’a war chant, which in canon was taught to the clones by Jango and the Cuy’val Dar)  
>  _Elek_ — “Yes”, slang shortened to _’lek_ , “Yeah”
> 
> ***minor retcon/edit corrected and bolded 2/22/21***

Logically, it’s impossible for the entire Temple to sleep at night, not between nocturnal races and all the Jedi returning from missions on planets with different day cycles, but it still feels as if the building itself slumbers after night falls on Coruscant. 

Qui-Gon sleeps like the dead, and Obi-Wan doesn’t even try to sneak his way into his quarters with Anakin: he simply lets himself in with the passcode Qui-Gon hasn’t changed since Obi-Wan had been a padawan. Maker, but that was a lifetime ago.

Luckily Anakin doesn’t try to meet him at the door this time, so he doesn't bother turning on any of the lights before padding down the hall to the room that had at one time been his. Though Anakin must have sensed Obi-Wan making his way to the Master/Padawan halls, he must actually be learning to control his impulses.

His self-restraint lasts only until Obi-Wan crosses the threshold, and Obi-Wan laughs as he has to paw blindly behind himself to hit the control panel and close the door. “Have you finished your lesson work?” he asks, letting Anakin cling to him as he groans into Obi-Wan’s chest.

“You haven’t even said hello yet!”

“Hm, and is that a no?”

Anakin pulls away with a scowl, but he hasn’t been able to lie to Obi-Wan since Naboo, so he knows his brother padawan is telling the truth when he says, “Everything but the worksheet on Krayt dragon anatomy, but it’s not due until the end of the tenday.”

With how little Obi-Wan is even at the Temple, he always makes sure to get at least one evening with him uninterrupted, but he also won't stand for Anakin to fall behind in his lessons on his account. Sometimes, when Obi-Wan returns with no stories to tell, or with those that he can't, they'll work on Anakin's lessons together, and those nights are special too.

Smiling, Obi-Wan tugs on his padawan braid just to see him huff. "Then hello there, Ani."

"You're mean," Anakin grumbles, pulling away to dramatically stomp to the other side of his room, and Obi-Wan follows with a fond roll of his eyes. 

He drops onto the ground against the side of Anakin’s bed without invitation, unwinding Dha from his obi and setting them on the bedside table. Still grumbling, Anakin turns the dim lights off completely and flicks on the holoprojector next to Dha instead; the dark ceiling comes alive with stars, a light-studded map that fills every crevice of Anakin's bedroom with their galaxy. 

Obi-Wan watches Anakin as the boy —who's really more of a teenager now, isn't he— stands there and watches the spinning systems pass over them, still unable to pull himself away immediately, still somehow that little boy from Tatooine.

"Anakin," he says quietly, and his brother blinks before dropping his gaze to smile sheepishly. He is already so much more than that little boy.

With a shake of his head and a smile of his own, Obi-Wan tugs the still-standing Anakin into his arms; he stumbles to keep upright, but lets Obi-Wan hold him there. "You're the worst," Anakin tells him.

"Then I suppose I'll be giving your souvenir to our master, hm?" 

But instead of bending under the teasing, or snarking back, Anakin frowns down at him. "Don't call him that." He shakes his head before Obi-Wan can speak. "You haven't told me everything, and Master Qui-Gon won't let me bring it up, but I'm not stupid, Obi-Wan."

He lets out a long, slow sigh. "Do we have to do this now, Anakin?"

"When else are we going to do it?" Anakin wriggles in his arms until Obi-Wan doesn't have to lean back quite so much to see him, and Maker, he really is getting tall. "You're about to go away again, for a _long_ time this time, I can feel it."

He's too young to be this knowing, even with the Force vibrating in a tangible layer over his skin. When Obi-Wan searches him out in the Force, it's like touching static feedback in human form, for all that he seems to exude light and warmth from every pore, for all that Anakin calms him in ways Qui-Gon never could. 

But his midichlorians do not account for the way he reads a room and predicts every possible outcome, and has an escape route for each of them. No, that was all Tatooine.

And Obi-Wan cannot lie to him either. "I am," he says softly, and feels Anakin deflate. "So long that I don't know when I'll be back."

"If you come back."

Obi-Wan exhales, letting Anakin wriggle away to drop onto his bed at Obi-Wan’s shoulder. "If I'm to return to the Force before seeing the Temple again, then that is its will. I cannot promise that I will be back, because I do not know, but would you accept the promise that I will do whatever I can to make it back to you?" This borders on attachment, he knows, knows that everything after Tatooine had been punishment for _attachment,_ for how deeply Obi-Wan had cared for his master. But what else could he say to a child so terrified of losing everything?

"I suppose..." Anakin looks to his feet, thumping them against the bed frame for a moment.

"When have I ever not come back to you?"

He scrunches up his entire face. "Never."

"And when have I ever broken a promise to you?" Obi-Wan prods Anakin’s hip, prepared for the retaliating kick to his ribs. "You hear the Force louder than any Jedi alive or dead, Anakin: can you not feel the way it pulls me?"

Anakin is quiet for a moment, though Obi-Wan knows he doesn't need to concentrate all that hard to read the Force, and then he groans and slides down onto the floor next to him. "I can," he grumbles. "You’re meant to go to Mandalore, you're meant to help Mr. Fett, but that doesn't mean I have to like it."

Chuckling, Obi-Wan concedes. "Then you are at least attempting to listen to your Masters about letting go."

"’Doesn't mean I have to like that either," he grouses. 

"That is also true.”

“Can’t I come with you?”

Obi-Wan levels him with an unimpressed look, and Anakin slumps into Obi-Wan’s side with a groan. “Really now, Anakin,” he says, running his fingers over Anakin’s padawan spikes. “I can’t very well get you souvenirs if you’re there to see me buy them, can I?”

Anakin squints at him as if Obi-Wan can’t see the delight in his eyes. “Does the council know you’re spending Order funds on tchotchkes?”

“So I suppose you don’t want this new projector datachip for the Tatooine system then.”

“Obi-Wan!” Sounding strangled, Anakin all but tackles him and immediately finds the datachip tucked in his belt, scrambling to his feet to switch the chips out.

Despite having just gotten an elbow to the solar plexus, Obi-Wan smiles and watches the ceiling go dark before realighting with the tiny Tatooine system, listening to Dha humming contently from the bedside table.

“When Master Yoda taught you to pick your battles, I do not believe this is what he meant,” Master Windu tells Obi-Wan blandly, and Jango gives a great snort from the sitting room doorway. 

Luckily, Quinlan had been barred from Yan’s rooms, or Obi-Wan would never hear the end of this.

Yan is there, of course, because Master Plo and Windu had rightly assumed that Obi-Wan would simply relay whatever they discussed to him, and no one on the council can really _tell_ Yan Dooku what he can and cannot do. He hasn’t said a word since Obi-Wan began to explain Dha’s... quest for him, silently sipping his tea and gazing out his window over one of the Temple’s many gardens.

Dha laughs unhelpfully from the centre of the tea table, periodically painting the back of his eyes with his mythosaur wrestling a reek, until Obi-Wan has to physically blink the images away.

Master Plo observes him quietly, still so ancient, still so perceptive. “They speak to you now?”

Obi-Wan rubs his jaw awkwardly. “Well, ‘speak’...” 

Master Windu folds his hands in front of his lips and meets Obi-Wan’s eye steadily. “This undertaking puts the Order at great risk. I do not need to remind you of the tension between the Republic and Mandalore, nor of the last time you involved yourself in a civil war.”

“You do not,” Obi-Wan agrees softly, closing his eyes to let Dha pick through his memories of Cerasi and Neild, of Melida/Daan and the Young. That new warmth next to Dha that Obi-Wan is too afraid to put a proper name to follows Dha around his head, not touching, just observing.

That he doesn’t have to turn to see the unimpressed look Jango is giving the back of his head when he opens his eyes speaks volumes to what a foolish fear that is.

Windu’s gaze flicks to Jango but does not stay there. “However, I stand by what I said after Dagobah: this darkness in your path cannot be coincidence. The shatterpoints are... unclear, the Force is murky.”

Plo hums his agreement and runs a claw over the air above Dha, never quite touching them. “The meaning of the Vergence at Ilum, and your path from it, remains elusive to us. I take it that this is not the case for you.”

“No.” He can’t help it, prodding at the Warmth, glancing at Jango. “I cannot explain it, Dha does not speak in words, and I honestly wouldn’t... even know where to begin, but the last time the Force spoke so clearly to me was Tatooine.”

All three masters in the room release a sigh at the implication, and Yan finally turns back to the conversation. “A member of the Jinn lineage perhaps _would_ encounter two of the largest vergences in our time,” Yan offers. “Such is the way of the universe.”

Plo chuckles as Obi-Wan runs a hand over his face, because yes, perhaps he really shouldn’t be surprised by the last decade of his life.

“I do not think there has been a vergence quite like Padawan Skywalker since far before Master Yoda’s time,” Plo says good-naturedly. “But your ‘saber’s insistence on your return to Mandalore raises many concerns.”

“I refuse to let this blow back on the Order,” Obi-Wan says firmly. “I... briefly discussed with Yan the possibility of my resigning from the Order–” Both Dha and that Warmth rebel against the thought, slamming against his shields and making him stumble over his words. He quickly tries to assuage both parties, while Master Windu raises a single eyebrow at his pause. “But we– we did not think that the best course of action."

"I agree," Master Plo says, and though Obi-Wan cannot actually tell where his gaze is, it is clearly elsewhere. "No, it seems the Force would agree that you belong with the Jedi."

"Then we must proceed with caution.” Windu puts a simple datapad before Obi-Wan, as well as a communicator in a model he’s never seen before. “I did not ask Master Yoda to join us, because we felt as your great grandmaster, of a lineage notorious for their... sentiment,” Obi-Wan flinches, but Windu just smiles sadly at him, “that he would not remain truly neutral. It is imperative that the Order remain neutral in this.”

“We have spoken with the Council of First Knowledge,” Master Plo continues, and Obi-Wan pulls up his memories of the different councils, not for Dha, but for that Blue that probably wasn't even aware of there being more than one council. “Master Ti agrees that this should be treated as a Shadow mission.”

“This has little to do with the Sith,” Yan says, revealing nothing of his inner thoughts.

Obi-Wan rubs his knuckle over his lips, easing his anxiety away from himself. “And I have not been given Shadow traini–”

Master Windu holds up a hand. “Your time with Master Dooku has more than prepared you, should you need to draw on those skills. This will not be a standard Shadow assignment, we do not expect you to seek out darksider relics, but logging this with the Council of First Knowledge gives us liberties that an assignment from the High Council would not allow.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jango cuts in, not sounding very sorry, “but what the _kriff_ are you talking about?”

Yan blinks benignly at him, setting down his teacup. “Normally we would not disclose such information with one outside the Order, but under the circumstances, there is likely little else you do not already know. The Council of First–”

“No,” Jango interrupts, “I got that. Shadows hunt Sith artifacts, answer only to Council of First Knowledge, they’re your deep-op Jedi. Supercommandos.”

Obi-Wan does agree the comparison is apt. However, “If you still believe I will let Satine remain in power at the expense of our people–”

_“No,”_ Jango growls. “I’m asking what the kriff this council plans to do when the Senate comes down on both your heads, because it _will._ Making you some sort of undercover agent changes nothing of the side you would be fighting for.”

“Your concerns are reasonable and understandable,” Master Windu says, his easy calm settling over the room, and even Dha quiets in Obi-Wan’s mind. “I will not pretend that we are all-knowing, Mr. Fett, that we can prepare for every outcome. I will not lie and say that this is not one of the most dangerous missions we’ve given to one of our own. Truthfully, we’ve barely begun to consider all the consequences of it, but we do not have the _time:_ someone will have seen you enter the Temple, word will have spread about your ship in our hangars, and we will gain nothing keeping you both here while we confer.”

“We will of course continue to work on our end,” Plo adds. “Find allies in the Senate, prepare for the fallout. I do not think we could stop Master Dooku from assisting, regardless.”

And Yan doesn’t deny it, taking a serene sip of his tea. 

“As a –shall I say– _honorary_ Shadow, you would have significantly more leeway with how you believe the mission should be carried out.” Windu taps the pad, but doesn’t turn it on. “You will not have to report back to the High Council, unless you see fit, and Master Ti has offered the Council of First Knowledge as a resource to you, but also does not require you to report to her. We will always be behind you, but this is a request from the Force that was not extended to us.”

Obi-Wan exhales slowly. “I understand, Master. I’ve known that since Ilum.”

But Jango isn’t done, and poorly attempts to keep the growl from his voice, “You don’t even have a _plan.”_

Dha laughs. “Not one I can speak of without ruining the Order’s plausible deniability,” Obi-Wan sighs, because _really._ Yes, this venture came rather out of nowhere, for all of them, but this is far from the first time Obi-Wan has planned a political coup. Maker, he’s been doing this since Melida/Daan, sometimes it feels as if it's all he’s ever done, and if Jango thinks he’s going into this like a spooked mynock, he clearly hasn’t been paying attention.

“Obi-Wan is correct,” Yan says, stroking his beard. “To speak further of his plans before you leave Coruscant would put us all at risk. Grandpadawan, I will continue to pursue Rret So’s connections, and your visions at Ilum.”

“I still haven’t agreed to all of this.” 

With a snort, Obi-Wan tucks the datapad into his robes and the commlink into his belt. “This is a private channel?”

“Of course,” Windu says. “It will give you a direct, encrypted line to Masters Ti and Dooku, as well as myself.”

“Use it only when necessary. As far as the councils are concerned, you are in deep cover as a Shadow. As far as the Temple is concerned, you are continuing your studies with Master Dooku, but taking frequent missions in the Outer Rim.” Plo taps his claws on the table. “What has young Skywalker figured out?”

Obi-Wan winces. “He knows my return is indefinite. He is too smart not to have connected Dha to Jango’s presence in the Temple, but I do not think he realises to what extent.” He catches Windu’s near-silent sigh, and knows what he means to ask from that alone. “And no,” he admits softly, “I did not speak to Qui-Gon.”

Blue wraps around his mind, in anger and sanctuary both.

“Then Master Jinn will know as the Temple knows.”

“Which will perhaps not aid your current reputation,” Plo chuckles. “You can imagine the sorts of stories that have reached the Council since last afternoon.”

“I’m not apologising.” The sort of expression in Jango’s voice is not one Obi-Wan needs to turn around to see.

Master Windu is just as unimpressed. “And we did not expect you to. The point stands: the Jedi are incurable gossips and Obi-Wan’s absence will not improve that.”

Obi-Wan sighs into the hand over his face, because he had honestly hoped to somehow make it out of the Temple without reprimand. “Then perhaps it will be good for me to be out of the Temple for a while,” he says. “I don’t want my... contention with Qui-Gon to affect Anakin.”

When he looks up, the masters are both surprised and resigned. “Ah, then I suppose you have not heard that this gossip often sways in your favour.” At Obi-Wan’s bemused look, Plo continues, “Perhaps I will say that what is being said does not paint Qui-Gon Jinn in the brightest light.”

Oh, Maker, now he’s accidentally started a smear campaign against his old master. “I swear I did not intend–”

“Calm yourself, grandpadawan,” Yan rumbles kindly, “they are not accusing you. Considering what was... explained to us yesterday, I do not think even the Council holds Qui-Gon in very high esteem at the moment.” And they do not deny it, Plo tapping his claws on the table as he meets Obi-Wan’s gaze steadily.

He scrambles for something, anything to say. “But that is not...”

“The Jedi way?” Master Windu guesses with a tiny smile. “Perhaps not, but neither was his treatment of you, or our blindness to it. It will take even the best of us a fair few days to contend with both of these facts.”

“Don’t,” Jango grunts before Obi-Wan can even open his mouth. “It’s four to one, little Jedi, you won’t talk your way out of this one.”

Yan snorts in what could almost be humor as Obi-Wan purses his lips.

“As it is, we do not have much time,” Windu says and easily pulls them back to task. “To stall will only make it more difficult to explain in your absence. Mr. Fett, Master Dooku has offered to store your ship at his personal hangar on Serenno, it would be unwise to travel separately.”

“And what the kriff is wrong with _my_ ship?”

“Your Firespray doesn’t have a spare bunk that isn’t an immobilising bed,” Obi-Wan shoots mildly back. “At least mine is built for more than one passenger.” 

Jango grits his teeth, but does not argue, and even that is progress.

Yan follows Plo and Windu when they leave for thirdmeal, but not before setting a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder that says much more than any words between them could have just then. Jango observes just as quietly with his helmet on his hip, as they wait for the door to swish closed behind the masters.

A new before and after.

Obi-Wan inhales slowly, centering himself and his thoughts before he feels ready to turn back to Jango. He doesn’t know what to make of the softness in his expression, the way he does not pretend he had not been looking.

Clearing his throat, Obi-Wan retrieves Jango's blasters from his robes. "If I give these back to you now, will you promise not to shoot anyone until we're on my ship?"

Horror and realisation saturate the Force at alarming speeds, and though Jango manages to keep his expression blank, there is still panic in his eyes as he stares at Obi-Wan’s hands holding his blasters out by the trigger guard. Obi-Wan raises a brow, wondering if he had somehow damaged them, but Jango snatches them back before he can ask, shoving them into the holsters at his thighs. 

"No promises on the shooting people," Jango rasps, and Obi-Wan admires his resolve to pretend that this odd exchange had never happened. Two steps forward, or whatever parents teach their young these days. 

They wait until thirdmeal is well underway before leaving Yan’s rooms, and Obi-Wan sets his personal comm on Yan’s table with a single last message sent to Quinlan about him going under. It feels impersonal, but it’s been like this since they were knighted, and Quinlan will understand better than anyone about the suddenness of his departure.

They somehow avoid passing a single Jedi as Obi-Wan quickly leads Jango back to the flight hangars, the halls emptier than Obi-Wan can ever remember seeing them. He wonders if this is by design.

A Flightcorp Bothan is the only Jedi in the hangar when they arrive, looking up from the service booth with a wave. Obi-Wan smiles and nods back, trying not to look too suspicious as he ushers Jango to the far end of the hangar where the few Jedi with personal ships berth. And perhaps the Flightcorp is all too used to Obi-Wan’s sudden comings and goings, because the Bothan merely returns to the datapad they had been reading from.

“Your security could use a little work,” Jango deadpans, making Dha chirp at Obi-Wan’s back. 

Obi-Wan merely raises an eyebrow and leads the way up a durasteel ladder to a catwalk two floors above. “They are all Jedi too, Jango; they can tell when something is amiss.”

Jango snorts, but doesn’t press, simply follows Obi-Wan to the very end of the catwalk to his berthed starcruiser. He doesn’t rightly know what the original model even is, because he got it third-hand somewhere between Coruscant and Serenno from a Kaliesh who didn’t speak a word of Basic, and the previous owners had slapped together so many mismatched parts that even the paintjob Obi-Wan had given it doesn’t make it look cohesive. Which is probably why Dha liked it in the first place.

They agree with a soft hum as Obi-Wan punches in the door code and drops down the ramp, before realising Jango has halted a pace behind. Hesitating, Obi-Wan looks around the hangar for something that could have startled him, but Jango is staring _at_ his ship, at the scrawled Aurebesh name Anakin had been kind enough to paint for him. 

“Is everything alright?”

_“‘The Legacy,’”_ Jango reads dully, which reveals absolutely nothing of his meaning.

Obi-Wan licks his dry lips. “Dha had me name it that as soon as we bought it,” he explains uncertainly. “Is that a problem?”

“And you’re sure you’ve never been in my head?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Letting out a long, slow sigh, Jango runs a gloved hand over the words, before righting himself and walking past Obi-Wan up the ramp. “Please tell your ‘saber that I would strangle them if I could.”

“I beg your _pardon?”_ he repeats, and Dha is absolutely no help, laughing as they flash images of an AI-AT painted green; it's far larger than the _Legacy,_ but he does recognise parts of the AI-AT in his own ship; Dha maddeningly doesn’t explain its significance. No, instead they tell him to trip Jango for them. “You’re just as bad as they are,” Obi-Wan decides, calling after Jango as the Mando makes his way to the front of the ship, and only gets a bark of laughter for his trouble.

Luckily Jango can find his own way to the cockpit, dropping his helmet and the pack he’d brought from the Firespray into the copilot’s seat. Obi-Wan can only shake his head and join him.

He doesn’t start the engines immediately, though, instead firing up the astronav system and putting in Mandalore’s coordinates so it can start calculating the jump. Smiling apologetically at Jango’s raised eyebrow, Obi-Wan flips on the holocomm next and turns the monitor towards him, the holoscreen flashing and waiting for an input. 

Jango stares at it for a moment, before sighing harshly. “Kriff it, I guess we’re doing this,” he grunts and punches in a comm code with perhaps too much force.

A man that looks only a little older than Obi-Wan answers almost immediately, his beskar-clad torso flickering in the holo as Obi-Wan scoots a little further over to not be in frame. _“Jango,”_ the man says with a grin, as relieved and thrilled as Jango seems to be. 

“Mij,” he sighs, the lines on his face softer than Obi-Wan has seen them. “This call isn’t private, but is in safe company. Are you alone?”

_“Ahh, and here I was hoping you were calling me up for a long-overdue cantina crawl,”_ this Mij returns with feigned disappointment.

And Jango laughs, and it’s actually _real_ , and Dha is far too amused by Obi-Wan’s sudden fluster.

“I wish we had time for that, _burc’ya,”_ Jango says, “but I’m afraid I come with a far less entertaining request.”

Mij straightens. _“Is it time?”_

Jango blinks at the other Mando, before frowning at Obi-Wan – as if _he_ would have the explanation. “Time?”

_“Come now,_ Mand’alor: _surely you know we’ve only been waiting for your call.”_

The Blue in Obi-Wan’s mind goes soft, confused and pleased, something wholly Mandalorian that Obi-Wan doesn’t have a name for, as Jango ducks his head and takes a deep breath. “Then yes, Mij. It’s time.”

_“Kriffing finally.”_ Mij leans over to type something on his end, and Obi-Wan wonders if he’s on a ship, or planetside. _“We’re a little scattered, many of us are on jobs out of system, but most still live on Concordia. There are a few commandos on Concord Dawn that would house us—”_

“No, we rally on Mandalore, at the North Mines,” Jango says firmly, as if he already has a plan all laid out; Obi-Wan snorts in amusement at how much fuss he had kicked up for how prepared he seems to be. 

Mij considers this, still looking at something – perhaps a nav unit? _“That’s a sizable landing depot for sure. But Jango, why Mandalore?”_

“Because that’s where Kryze is. Our first stand must come from Mandalore.”

Dha sings in agreement, loud enough that Obi-Wan shuts his eyes against the sound. _Duracrete and mud settlements reclaimed by the jungle, a shipping depot in the side of a mountain whose roof has all but fallen in, a mythosaur closing its jaws around his arm, farmland turned to dust, green green green and cities of glass, Satine with her hand around his throat, Jango’s beskar’gam in pieces on the tent floor, Mando’ade in beskar’gam of all colours shouting Vode An on the eve of battle—_

_“It’s good to have you back,_ Mand’alor,” Mij says, forcing Obi-Wan back to the present. _“I will put out the call.”_

“Thank you, Mij,” Jango sighs, somehow looking a decade younger as he settles into his role like a handmade suit. “I’m on Coruscant, we’ll be in Mandalore space in three days.”

_“I’m two days out, so I’ll meet you there. Scout out the depot a bit.”_ He leans as if to try and look behind Jango, a single brow raised. _“And tell that ‘safe company’ that they better not be that jailbait Sheeka,”_ he adds before ending the call with a shit-eating grin.

Obi-Wan smiles innocently up at Jango as he drags a hand down his face. “Jailbait?”

“Just start the kriffing ship.”

_“Elek, Mand’alor.”_

* * *

**Quinlan stops and refocusses on the holocomm on his counter, because he can’t have heard that right. “Dex, wait, what do you mean?”**

**Dex’s hologram huffs unhappily. _“The Mando just walked in and started pestering FLO for information on Jedi customers, even tried to slice into her memory bank. FLO chased them out, of course, I was in the back, but Hermione’s been askin’ around, and the Mando’s looking for information on Yan Dooku’s close friends. Whoever they are, they’re dumber than my tuber fryer, I’ve never seen such reckless investigation in all my years of dumpster reconnaissance.”_**

**But Obi-Wan had only left Coruscant with Dha’s Mando the evening before; that there are already Mandalorians looking for him…**

**“Dex,” Quinlan cuts through his grumbling. “Did Hermione found where the Mando keeps their ship?”**

**_“Please, Knight Vos, I do not hire half-rate criminals. The Mando’s staying in a Lower Level spacer’s inn called Therorack’s, ‘been there two days if the host is telling the truth.”_ Dex rumbles and runs one of his upper hands over his head. _“Now, I don’t know what our boy as been gettin’ into recently, but his track record with Mandos doesn’t fill me with confidence. Little Skywalker has been coming ’round the diner more after dark, the kid’s too smart not to know something’s coming, and I’m tryin’ to keep an eye on him, but he’s only gonna get more antsy the longer Obi is gone.”_**

**Sighing through his nose, Quinlan abandons his datapad on the counter next to his come and moves quickly through his Temple apartment, gathering darker clothing and an assortment of gadgets he usually only breaks out for Shadow missions.**

**“I’m on it, Dex,” he says, coming back to the counter. “Make sure Skywalker stays out of the Lower Levels for a few days?”**

**_“I think I can manage that. Give ‘em hell, Vos.”_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just as a disclaimer, when i use _any_ character of karen traviss’ in _any_ of my works, i am only taking the barest foundations of hers and making them mine, because she doesn’t deserve them, or anyone else. i can’t ignore how much she expanded on mandalorian culture and on jango, but holy fuck did she Do Everything Wrong. pretend the events of the repcom novels never happened basically, kal isn’t an abusive douchebag (or white), and Etain Tur-Mukan doesn’t fucking exist. anyways. i love mij.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mandalore recognises him. He knows it from the moment they disembark from The Legacy, when that same jolt runs up his legs to his chest, when Dha greets the planet like an old friend. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Translations:**  
>  _beskar’gam_ — Armour made of beskar, “Mandalorian Iron” that was actually probably a steel alloy  
>  _bes’bev_ — a wind instrument with a sharp end, also used as a weapon (and in my ‘verse, to write Mandalorian cuneiform)  
>  _jetii_ — “Jedi” sing, pl. jetiise  
>  _Haat Mando’ade_ — lit. “true children of Mandalore”, True Mandalorians (slang shortened to Haat'ad/e)  
>  _kyr’bes_ — “skull”, though most often a mythosaur skull; colloquially “crown”, and the mark of the Mand’alor.  
>  _skraan'ikase_ — “little eats”, a meal of many smaller dishes similar to tapas or meze; a messier meal traveling commandos would not have time to make/clean up.  
>  _osik_ — impolite form of “dung”, shit  
>  _shebs_ — “backside”, “ass”  
>  _jatne manda_ — “good mood”, but specifically a feeling of peace and contentment with your clan and life
> 
> this chapter was fueled by t swizzle's folklore and the sudden discovery that i have curly hair

The first night on the _Legacy_ isn’t nearly as awkward as Obi-Wan had (maybe) expected. Jango is a quiet passenger, he sits in the tiny galley and reads some of the datapads Obi-Wan leaves stacked (neatly) on nearly every surface, and he leaves his helmet in his bunk. Which probably means something — something that wasn’t covered in the culture lessons Master Nu had given him; to be fair, the Duchy hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with sharing such knowledge.

Obi-Wan is only (slightly) disquieted that Jango seems to already know where everything is.

So he sits at the table in his quarters and stares at the holos from Dagobah until his eyes burn. Master Nu had given him copies of every dialect of Mando’a the Jedi are aware of, and he can _see_ the similarities, he knows written Mando’a has hardly changed since its conception, but none of the characters translate into a comprehensible word. When Obi-Wan has run it through four hundred different written languages from around Dagobah and Mandalore, he has to force himself away from the table to his meditation mat instead, with no dearth of disappointment in himself; he should have better control of his frustration by now. 

_Peace,_ Dha whispers to him as he unhooks them to set before his knees. _Forward, forward–_

“Only forward,” he sighs, holding that ache in his chest for a moment more before releasing it. Dha hums and shows him a blurry image of a reek bleeding out and half-buried in a sand dune, and the blood actually _moves._ Obi-Wan watches it like a holoreel without audio, as his mythosaur tries to rip the reek’s head from its shoulders.

_That’s not helping,_ he tells Dha waspishly, who only chirps and settles back next to the Warmth.

When Yan isn’t traveling with him, Obi-Wan rarely makes proper meals, except for thirdmeal; he's probably not quite back on Coruscanti time anyway, so when his comm unit flashes with his reminder to eat something, it really is rather late anywhere but Serenno. 

Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised to sense Jango still awake when he passes the spare sleeping quarters. Enough for two, then.

Obi-Wan isn’t an excellent cook by any means, but when you were in charge of rations for a bantha-sized master spending more time off planet than in the Temple, you had to learn enough to survive; he’s better than either Qui-Gon Jinn or Jedi-issued ration packs, anyways.

Yan –being Yan– had never allowed Obi-Wan to leave without a well-stocked larder, so he has quite a lot to work with and then some; Yan must have compensated for Jango also calling the _Legacy_ home for the next few days. Most of it is rations, a mix of Jedi and Serenno labels, because it’s not as if he’ll have time to make extravagant meals if he’s truly about to start a war, but there is still some fresh vegetables and meat in the small refrigeration drawer under one of the counters. 

As he sets about making a recipe he thinks he remembers correctly, it doesn’t escape his notice that Yan had also restocked his spice cabinet. 

His ‘saber starts a low hum of contentment, a door whispering open down the hall followed by the muted sound of metal against metal. Well-maintained _beskar’gam_ makes hardly a sound when the wearer doesn’t want it to, so Jango must want it to; even then, it’s almost so quiet that if Obi-Wan didn’t know better, he would think it the creak of his own ship. _Blue,_ Dha murmurs, as if Obi-Wan really didn’t know better, and had somehow missed Jango coming to lean against the open doorjamb with an air of slightly-irritated confusion.

Obi-Wan raises a brow at the man that had not bothered with his helmet now either, and he’s played this game with the Council for far too long to be the one to break and speak first.

Jango sighs through his nose. “What are you doing.”

Which. Which is a little ruder than Obi-Wan expects of him. “I’m making thirdmeal, since neither of us ate before leaving the Temple. You were still awake, so I thought I’d make you some as well; I was not aware of anything untoward about sharing a meal in your culture.”

“No, that’s–” He sighs again. “No, why are you making _that,”_ he nods to the deep pan Obi-Wan has on the heating unit, and continues before Obi-Wan can tell him how rude it is to refuse a meal without even trying it, “You’re making crawfish.”

“Yes, from Tares.”

“You don’t like seafood.”

For a wild, somewhat out-of-body moment, Obi-Wan goes back and analyses every conversation they’ve had the last tenday for a situation where he would have mentioned this to him. Dha lets it happen, sits back and watches his internal confusion, and only when they realise Obi-Wan really isn’t going to come to this conclusion on his own do they politely remind him that _Blue_ had been in his mind for three years. 

Which isn’t nearly as comforting as Dha perhaps hoped it would be: he’s had enough people in his head to last a lifetime.

“Ah,” he finally manages softly. “I saw the drying racks on your ship, it was mostly fish. And, to be fair, I’ve never met a Mandalorian that didn’t like Taresian Crawfish drowned in bantha butter and Concordian chillies.” 

Jango’s lips twitch. “Hm, and what were you going to do if I _didn’t_ like it, Jedi?”

“Feed it to Dha,” he deadpans easily.

He blinks as Jango _laughs,_ soft and genuine, and Obi-Wan feels his thoughts come to a complete stop. Oh. Oh, no — no, this will turn very bad very fast: Obi-Wan had signed up for a war, not for... not for this. 

Funny how his fear feels like _blue._

It’s all too easy for Obi-Wan weasle his way out of actually sitting and eating with Jango, in no small part thanks to the silver tongue he’d developed just trying to keep Qui-Gon out of jail. He takes his bowl to his quarters and settles back at his datapad, somewhat sorely missing his padawan braid as he has to settle for chewing on his stylus instead.

Stepping away had apparently done him some good, because the Mando’a characters actually start to make a little more sense to him. Clucking, Dha wraps around the words in his mind and rearranges them, twists them into new sentences and phrases Obi-Wan still doesn’t understand, but they don’t look quite so foreign now. 

And then Dha ruffles through his memories to drag one to the surface, one from his last day on Bandomeer as he helped Qui-Gon slice their way into the mine elevator. If Obi-Wan remembers correctly –and Dha assures him he does– Xanatos had gone out of his way to code the mines’ computers in Ubese rather than Aurebesh, with the solve key in Telosian; it had almost taken Qui-Gon too long to break the code, even with Obi-Wan’s help.

“It’s in code?” he mutters to Dha, not opening his eyes just yet. It would explain why Master Nu didn’t recognise it, at least. 

_Rough hands stained in ink, a paper book burning in a firepit, the darksaber laid out in pieces on a wooden table, a bes’bev scratching carefully into a stone wall, blood on sand, blood dripping from Dha’s hilt, a beskar chestplate under brown Jedi robes, fire and mythosaur roars, Anakin’s eyes gone completely white. Fire, fire, white._

Dha is noticeably silent when Obi-Wan drags himself from his bunk the next morning — or as close to morning as you can get in a hyperjump. 

He hasn’t... slept _well_ since Ilum, but at least the last few years had been dreamless. He wishes he could go back to that, at least then he wouldn't feel like he needs to scrub the after-images from behind his eyes. 

Leaving the lights off, Obi-Wan dresses in the dark of his cabin and leaves Dha on the shelf by his bunk, their silence all the more grating against the background noises of the _Legacy._ He lights a stick of incense as he settles on his mediation mat, and his eyes easily find Dha across the room.

Their path together is as straightforward as it’s ever been, it’s an almost physical pull towards Mandalore, a cold current sliding over Obi-Wan’s skin that he hadn’t realised he had been fighting against until the resistance was suddenly gone. Had he been fighting it since Ilum? No, it must have been longer, it must have been... _He meets Satine under a hail of balsterfire, but she doesn’t learn his name for hours more, long after Qui-Gon finds them a flop house on the edge of the Sundari slums. He meets Mandalore before then, when they stop their little ship in Keldabe for a refuel and Qui-Gon plops a rather ugly hat on Obi-Wan’s head to hide his hair. Mandalore meets him the first time he drops his boots onto the mossy ground and sends a jolt up his legs._

Even since then? Perhaps that isn’t so hard to believe, when he had argued with Qui-Gon just before landing, and spent the coming year worrying that Qui-Gon planned to drop him as soon as the mission was over. He's done quite a lot of running since then. 

"You fell asleep pretty quick for someone with a stranger on their ship."

Obi-Wan opens his eyes, not realising he had closed them, and Jango stands in the open door, casting a block of light into the otherwise dark room. 

More surprised by his words than his presence, it takes Obi-Wan a moment to gather his thoughts. "And do I have something to fear from you, Mr. Fett? Planning on shivving me in my sleep?"

He snorts. “Hardly. But you trust too easily.”

“If you’ve seen enough of my life to speak on behalf of my memories, then you know that is far from the truth. Or do you mean I trust _you_ too easily?”

He slants a glare at him, though Obi-Wan has no idea what other conclusion he could have hoped he’d come to. “I know more about your life than I remember of my own, _jetii._ Yet you now nothing of me.”

Obi-Wan considers this, considers the blue warmth that murmurs _Mand’alor_ with every breath. “I know that you are _Haat Mando’ade._ I know that at the first viable chance, you chose to return to and liberate your people. I know that anyone who weathered three years of dreams about Qui-Gon Jinn and didn’t lose their mind is someone of incredible patience,” he grins at Jango’s disgruntled look, “and not someone I fear when my back is turned."

Jango sighs, and only then does Obi-Wan realise his grey undersuit is rolled down to his waist, leaving just the simple blue shirt underneath, and something in Obi-Wan _aches._ “You’re not helping your case, kid.”

“Is it really so hard to believe someone could trust you?”

“No one trusts a bounty hunter,” he sneers, and that ache in Obi-Wan turns sharp.

“You mean no one trusts a leader that led them to slaughter.”

Even Dha goes icy at that, warningly bouncing around his mind because this is _dangerous,_ but Obi-Wan doesn’t need his ‘saber to tell him that. No, Obi-Wan knows exactly what he’s getting himself into, when Jango turns to him with a glare not even Maul had achieved and Obi-Wan’s only shield is his staunch certainty that this man will not hurt him. 

“Jango,” he says softly, because if nothing else, he is sure of this: “You are the only one still blaming yourself.”

“You. Were not. There.”

“Then when we arrive on Mandalore, Mij will greet us alone, and you can say ‘I told you so.’”

“If you truly believe me Mand’alor, why the kriff do you argue with me?”

“But Jango, you make it ever so entertaining.”

Silence stretches between them, thick but not entirely unpleasant, until it is Obi-Wan that breaks their gaze. Dha seems at a loss as Obi-Wan shakes his head with a tiny smile.

“I will not participate in your self-flagellation, Jango. Unless you do end up shivving me — in which case I fear we’ll have quite a few other things to talk about.”

“Cheeky shit.”

“Would you believe it if I said you are not the first to say so?”

“Unfortunately, I’ve seen most of those occasions.” Jango sighs, not smiling, but not glaring anymore either, and Obi-Wan will take whatever progress he can get.

After checking and updating their course, Obi-Wan makes use of the sonic and finally hooks Dha onto his belt. They don’t seem miffed about being left behind most of the day, they even seem to be wrapped up in their own thoughts — their presence barely registers in his mind.

He tries to have another go at the inscription, but quickly gives up when his eyes won’t focus on the datapad’s screen. He searches out the manifest from the Temple to double check his stocks just for something to do, and Dha takes great pleasure in blurting random numbers just to throw him off; perhaps he should have left them in his quarters.

The only time Obi-Wan had ever minded long-haul jumps was when Master Windu would give Qui-Gon a theological or spiritual puzzle for entertainment, and Qui-Gon would try to drag Obi-Wan into them every minute he wasn't sleeping. Usually, he could get away with reading or catching up on lessons, but the last few years since his knighting, he had taken to meditating instead. Somehow the knowledge of a guest on his ship doesn’t let him simply sequester away, even though it’s not as if Jango needs _entertainment._

Desperate just to keep his hands busy, Obi-Wan heats two ration packs for midmeal, and doesn’t even have to message Jango’s comm, the smell beckoning him to the galley as sure as a whistle. Jango sets a datapad on the shelf just inside the door on his way in, Obi-Wan noting he had put it back on the correct stack of pads. He doesn’t know if he appreciates it, or if it unsettles him.

“Smells like expensive rations,” Jango says blandly, accepting the partitioned tray from Obi-Wan with a raised brow.

“Unfortunately, my grandmaster is heir to quite a fortune,” Obi-Wan offers a small smile, “although his devotion to the Order prevents him from accepting most of it. He gets around it by using it to fund the Temple’s smaller programs, including the ration rotations.” So if he slips his grandpadawan a few of the pricier, and therefore more palatable, packs, well, it’s not as if anyone is going to tell Yan Dooku to _stop._

_Or you,_ Dha murmurs, gently reminding him of his last conversation with Windu and Plo. 

Jango just snorts and drops onto the bench at the table; his mouth moves as he says something, but Obi-Wan isn’t listening, too startled by the empty holsters at Jango’s hips. He had left his blasters in his quarters.

When he can tear his gaze back up, Jango meets it evenly, as if daring him to question it. 

Obi-Wan forces himself to unstick his feet from the floor and join him at the table; he knows better than to question a Mandalorian at ease, and a large part of him doesn’t _want_ to ask, when he doesn’t know if he could handle the answer.

They eat in a silence that’s only almost awkward, Dha making a low, constant rumble that Obi-Wan hasn’t heard from them before, but the sound is comforting under Jango’s assessing frown.

Obi-Wan steels himself when Jango sets down his fork purposefully. “What’s this plan of yours, then.”

And he can’t help a startled laugh, pushing his hair up out of his eyes. “‘Been agonising over that one since Coruscant?”

Jango’s lips twitch. “‘Thought I’d give you some time to cobble something together, if you’d been lying to your council.”

“Classy,” Obi-Wan smiles. “Lucky for the both of us, I did already have a few ideas. ‘Depends on how dirty you’re willing to get your hands.”

“I followed you with the expectation of war, Kenobi: I can get my hands dirty.”

Something in Obi-Wan twists, wondering between the two of them who has more experience; another part of him is glad he doesn’t know. 

“Then you’ll need to publicly challenge the Duchess.”

He snorts. “I’d thought as much. You planning on flying us into Sundari for a chat over tea?”

At his back, Dha grumbles in offense, but Obi-Wan can’t help smiling at Jango’s veiled jealousy. “I haven’t spoken to Satine since before Naboo,” Obi-Wan says, and it doesn’t hurt like it used to. “But, Force willing they haven’t thought to change the manufacturer of their holocomms, I can slice into it and give us a window. During one of her council meetings, perhaps.”

Jango’s brows jump, and he pushes away from the table to cross his arms. “You any good at slicing, then?”

“Top of the class when I was a padawan,” Obi-Wan says, relishing in Jango’s bemused expression. “Jedi aren’t all magic tricks and laser swords, Jango.”

“Your ‘magic tricks’ showed me very little of your time actually in Temple,” he returns easily. “I can count the number of classes I saw on one hand.”

“I’m sure the Masters would be relieved to hear that.” He picks his fork back up, but just pushes the gravy around a bit, not sure how he really feels about his memories in Jango’s head. Just how much had he actually seen? Does Obi-Wan even have any secrets left? Clearly he’d seen enough of Qui-Gon to form an opinion of him, but if Jango had only seen the bad times, surely that opinion is skewed. 

“Can you do this?”

Obi-Wan blinks, and Jango raises an eyebrow right back. 

“Are you actually prepared to dethrone and possibly violently fight someone you loved?”

It’s certainly too late for Obi-Wan to have those sorts of doubts now, and he’d be hard-pressed to believe Satine would ever physically _fight_ him. He sits there quietly for a moment, considering the bright yellow mashed tubers at the corner of his tray, and tries to decide how to phrase this. 

Maker, but his mission on Mandalore feels so long ago now. That bud of... feelings that lived at the back of his mind for so long had disappeared after Ilum, after Dha. 

“If she asked me now, I would not leave the Order for her.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Jango huffs, and Obi-Wan drags his gaze back up to consider the man across from him.

“I believe it does," he murmurs. "I would have left for her, I’d have done it without thinking of the consequences. Satine could not share me with the Order, she could not live knowing she came second to ten thousand people she’s never met.” He looks back to his gravy, and the way it congeals around his fork. “I know myself better, know I could not live knowing I had had to choose between them. I almost did leave the Jedi for Satine Kryze, but I would stay for you.” _For Mand’alor,_ his mind adds, but Jango is not his Mand’alor, Obi-Wan is not Haat Mando’ade. He would stay a Jedi, knows the Force rebels at the very thought of him leaving, and if it also insists that his future can be found on Mandalore, by following Jango, well. 

Jango is silent, face pinched like he’s trying to muster up a glare but just can’t. “You almost left. In the caves. You almost went and looked for her.”

He taps his fork against the bottom of his tray. “I stayed for you,” he settles on, shrugging. “I’ve been running for a long time, Jango; maybe just as long as you. Leaving the Order would be running. Backing down just because it’s Satine would be running. Giving up one family for another would be running, and I’m tired of running.”

“Perhaps that’s something we can agree on,” Jango says softly, and tears his gaze away.

Jango makes thirdmeal unprompted, a little earlier than Obi-Wan usually starts it, so when Obi-Wan finally pulls himself away from reviewing the manufacturer’s manual for the Sundari comm systems, Jango is already setting a steaming cast-iron skillet onto the table. He doesn’t seem surprised to see Obi-Wan, and he’s stripped his flight suit down to his waist again, his shirt a washed, comfortable red linen this time. And Obi-Wan hasn’t given thought to Jango in anything other than blue, but his red shirt is clearly well-loved, some seams repaired with darker thread than the rest, and though the dye is still vibrant, it’s obviously been washed enough times that it hangs soft and loose. Obi-Wan wonders if he really has a _kyr’bes_ etched on the inside of his chestplate.

He's thankful Jango isn’t Force sensitive, because he’s really not sure what sorts of thoughts he’s projecting at the moment.

Returning to the table with bowls instead of plates, Jango raises an eyebrow. “It’s not seafood,” he says, though he must know that isn’t why Obi-Wan has frozen in the doorway.

“No, that’s—” And Obi-Wan laughs at himself, because he is not a love-struck padawan, and it has been many years since he let himself be so visibly impolite. “It is just quite early,” he settles on, moving to help Jango set the table with various side dishes in little bowls Obi-Wan didn’t even know he owned. Despite the early hour, the rich, spicy smell of it all somehow convinces Obi-Wan he’s famished. “I see you’ve made use of the pantry.”

With a snort, Jango puts a bowl of red rice next to the skillet that seems to contain most of the produce Yan had stocked them with. “If things go as poorly as you think they will,” he says, accepting the clay cup of fireplum wine that Obi-Wan hands him, “we won’t exactly have time for proper meals.”

Obi-Wan blinks at him. _Skraan'ikase._

The New Mandalorians threw out much more of their culture than just their armour: by the time Satine was in power, they had done away with most native Mandalorian vegetables and spices, traded for much blander fare from the Mid- and Inner-Rim, so Obi-Wan had not eaten traditional food until many years after his mission on Mandalore. And those he had eaten with had done so by necessity, though not for a lack of hospitality; he simply was not one of them, he was not meant to share in their daily lives. 

_Skraan'ikase_ is not a daily meal, not when the _Haat Mando’ade_ rarely have time for drawn out feasts, not when so much depended on their mobility and nomadacy. Even sabbats were rarely spent around a table, though Obi-Wan isn't quite sure how things are handled now, after Galidraan, after Death Watch.

He knows that the foundling of the Mand'alor would not thoughtlessly invite him to such a meal, a meal for clan, for before a battle that they do not know if they can win. 

Jango watches him come to all these conclusions silently, expression passive but shoulders wound tight. Ah, it is a test, then, to see how deep Obi-Wan’s knowledge really goes. 

So he sits across from Jango as if he had not just frozen halfway in doing so, and passes Jango the reconstituted rolls. “Subtle,” he says, and Jango grins almost viciously.

“Knowing the language is not knowing the culture,” he returns easily, accepting the plate. “You’ll forgive me if the word of two other Jedi did not entirely convince me.”

“You could just ask.”

“But where’s the fun in that?”

Obi-Wan snorts, but moves to serve them both; it’s usually the expectation of the lowest ranked _Mando’ad,_ and perhaps there isn’t a comparable hierarchy between the two of them, but Obi-Wan supposes that a Mand’alor would outrank a Jedi Knight; Jango lets him, so he must have supposed correctly.

Then after a minute, Jango does lean forward to help, with lips twisted as if trying not to laugh; again, Obi-Wan isn’t entirely sure what Jango had expected of him, or if he had met it.

“Your ship is a mess of parts,” Jango starts after they’ve both tucked into their meal, no judgement, just observation, and Obi-Wan laughs.

“Have you been snooping? Surely you know this place inside and out.” 

“Your ‘saber has shown me moments from the past three years, but they have been few and far between.” He watches Obi-Wan over the lip of his cup, gauging his reaction, but Obi-Wan still doesn’t know what he expects. “At most I have seen the cockpit and your quarters.”

Which isn’t exactly comforting, thinking about those secrets he doesn't have anymore, but it doesn't... scare Obi-Wan either, knowing Jango knew the small details of him just as much as he knows his traumas. No, perhaps it is almost comforting? That one of the first things Jango had said to prove that he had in fact been in Obi-Wan’s head had been about his collection of trinkets in his quarters on the _Legacy._ That Jango had considered that just as important as his time on Naboo. 

That Jango thought more of him than his failures there.

“I’m not sure what the original model was,” Obi-Wan says. “By the time I got it, it had gone through two spacers and a spice runner, and all three had been running it into the ground besides. The Kaleesh I bought it from said there were at least five different ships from different manufacturers worked into the frame; with all the work I had to do on it myself, it’s easily seven or eight now.”

“Was one of those an AI-AT?”

Dha chirps, making themselves known for the first time since Obi-Wan had entered the galley.

Obi-Wan watches Jango carefully for a moment, trying to make sense of the images Dha is flicking through his mind. “Dha says the spice runner found scrap from an AI-AT in a junkyard. At least half the outside panels are from one of the wings she found.”

“Hm.” 

_His buir had hated that kriffing ship, it was too big even for the two of them, and he had sought it out after his escape from the spice freighter with the intention of burning it to the ground. He kept it far longer, until Zam had managed to blow it up. Somewhere, Jaster must be laughing at him._

Ah. Obi-Wan drops his eyes back to his bowl, poking aside a yellow bean of sorts that isn’t nearly as palatable as the rest of the vegetables Jango had used. “That’s why they had me name it the Legacy?”

“They didn’t tell you before?”

He has to laugh at that, as Jango trades a slice of tuber for the yellow bean from Obi-Wan’s bowl. “What and when Dha tells me things is probably less coherent than your dreams, my friend. Sometimes I think they forget what timeline they’re in.”

“Wizard _osik,”_ Jango says blandly, Dha making a noise somehow equal parts offended and pleased. “Although perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised after the caves.”

The wine curdles in Obi-Wan’s stomach, because he’s been avoiding thinking about this. “How... How much of that did you see?”

“See of what?” Jango adds more pickled radish to what remains of Obi-Wan’s rice. “Your visions in the caves?”

Clearing the sudden lump in his throat, Obi-Wan just nods.

“You saw Kryze a few times, I know you were thinking of leaving the Jedi. I couldn’t make sense of most of it, you were an old man in some of them, and Maker knows who Luke is. But that’s not what you’re asking.”

“No,” he agrees softly.

“You told your council you had seen me in a few of your visions, but I only saw myself in one.” He doesn’t give Obi-Wan the time to stew and panic about the _Beautiful Mando_ that had run circles around his mind whenever Jango showed up, pushing on, “I believe I was saving your assin the Glass City, which someone had had the actually novel idea of blowing it to bits.”

Well, at least it hadn’t been the one where they’d been in bed together.

“Please don’t blow up Sundari,” Obi-Wan sighs, earning another vicious grin, and another helping of pickled radish.

_A mythosaur closing its jaws around his arm, Anakin screaming, Jango grabbing him by the back of his robes and pulling him out of the way of a blaster bolt, Yan knelt in bloody sand, Dha screaming, Jango screaming, fire and fire, white white eyes, a mythosaur with blood squeezing from between its teeth down its jaws, broken glass and Satine’s hand around his throat it’s fine it’s fine if it’s like this it’s fine— a reek head dropped at his feet._

Obi-Wan opens his eyes to his quarters, dark save for the few candles he had lit on his table, and finds Dha is utterly silent on the floor before his knees. His incense has long since burned down.

He almost goes right back to meditating, because, Maker, will he need to meditate on all of _that_ now _,_ but something tugs at his mind and refuses to let the Force pull him back under.

His outer robe is draped around his shoulders. 

Twisting to look at his bunk, where he’s sure he had left his robe folded after thirdmeal, he wonders if he had gotten cold enough to surface from his first meditation to fetch it, but surely he would have remembered doing so. And he would have put it on properly.

The door to his quarters is open, but that isn’t unusual, he really only closes it when he’s gone to bed. And Yan certainly isn’t around to have done it, which just leaves _Jango;_ he isn’t sure if he’s flattered for the concern, or disturbed Jango had managed to not only enter his room, but also put his robe around his shoulders without Obi-Wan noticing.

He flexes his icy fingers, hands set on his knees away from the warmth of his robe, because that is not a new feeling; it makes _sense_ in the rather lonely world of Obi-Wan’s ship. He’s used to the space chill, and he is a Jedi: Jedi are always cold, running a few degrees lower than whatever is standard for their species. 

Almost without realising, Obi-Wan pushes to his feet and leaves Dha on his meditation mat, following the Warmth in his mind to the lower deck and into the maintenance room. 

Jango is halfway under the heating unit, just his armoured legs poking out next to an open tool box. 

“You should have gotten this repaired before we left,” Jango grumbles, not sliding out to greet him properly. 

“I wasn’t aware it was broken,” he says honestly, because he’d spent more time in space than he had in the Temple as a padawan, and perhaps even more time planet-side roughing it with Qui-Gon on missions. A heating unit is a luxury Obi-Wan hasn’t actually considered in years, and he hadn’t even thought to check it when he was fixing up the _Legacy._ Yan had never mentioned anything. “I’m quite accustomed to space,” he adds, but Jango gives a great snort.

“Accustomed my _shebs,”_ he mutters, a hand appearing to search blindly for the welding tool just out of reach.

Actually rather charmed, Obi-Wan crouches down and passes the tool to his impromptu repairman — and maybe he enjoys the tiny startle Jango gives at the touch. “Jedi are always cold,” he tries to explain. “Or I suppose any Force user. Something about thermodynamics and equal exchange, but I’m afraid it’s been quite a few years since my padawan science lessons and I’m no longer sure of the details.”

“‘Explains the robes,” comes Jango’s voice, followed by the sparking of the welding tool. “Jinn never complained about it.”

Ah yes, perhaps Obi-Wan should have known this would come back around to his master. He sighs. “Despite what you may think, my master never knowingly mistreated me. Qui-Gon is attuned to the Living Force better than any Jedi alive, and possibly any Jedi dead: he can regulate his body almost at will, I don’t know if that man has ever _been_ cold,” he huffs out a laugh. “He’s never admitted to just what else, but whatever species other than human is in his blood probably makes it even easier. Something from an ice planet, perhaps.”

“Sounds like more wizard nonsense, if you ask me.”

“It would behoove to know I, in fact, did not.”

He gets a laugh for that, though it’s tragically muffled by the machine between them. “No wonder your Mando’a is so stuffy, if you’re saying words like that even in Basic.”

“My Mando’a isn’t stuffy,” Obi-Wan says, and only sounds a little petulant. “It is simply born of not learning from Native speakers.” It’s not as if the New Mandalorians spoke it, and no other faction would have dealings with the Jedi. “I do believe you’ve insulted me twice this conversation, which really does go against you fetching my robe, and repairing my heating unit.”

“Maybe I’m just repairing it because it used to be on _Jaster’s Legacy.”_

“Mhm, and Quinlan Vos doesn’t hide contraband liquor under his mattress.”

Another laugh, and Obi-Wan wonders how much of his padawan... shenanigans Jango had seen. Maker, he hopes he didn’t live through Quinlan trying to teach him to drag race.

Obi-Wan is all the more convinced of the Force being involved somewhere in the creation and function of the Mand’alor, when Jango joins him in the cockpit before Obi-Wan can comm him and tell him they’re entering Mandalore’s orbit.

The Blue next to Dha is terrified, is still a child ripped from their home, but they are happy too, happier than Obi-Wan has the words to describe, even in Mando’a.

He doesn’t look up from the console, letting Jango fix his face back into the mask he’s been wearing since the last time he’d been in Mandalorian space. Coming back to the Temple from Naboo had felt similar, he thinks, or... no, this feels like watching Qui-Gon leave him on Melida/Daan. This _hurts,_ but this is _right._

Instead of taking over the piloting, Jango verbally directs Obi-Wan to the duracrete shipping depot Mij is set to meet them at, taking them further North than Obi-Wan had ever been. Sundari and the ever-growing desert honestly made him forget how much of Mandalore is still _green,_ still so alive that Obi-Wan can feel its feral breath in the Force even before they land.

Mandalore recognises him. He knows it from the moment they disembark from the _Legacy,_ when that same jolt runs up his legs to his chest, when Dha greets the planet like an old friend. 

The depot is even more overgrown than Dha’s vision had shown him: the forest has taken over more than half of the structure, vines pushing out of cracked duracrete, trees where perhaps there should not be trees. The depot is almost colosseum-like, and reminds Obi-Wan of Pau City, though it rises up as its own structure rather than having been built into the walls of a sinkhole. The landing bay Jango had directed him to is one of many spiraling up through the depot, though many seem unusable due to the jungle. 

Jango halts abruptly next to Obi-Wan on the edge of their platform, Blue's nerves giving way to surprise in Obi-Wan’s mind. 

There are hundreds of ships berthed in the walls, hundreds of tents pitched on the floor. 

“Mand’alor!” Mij calls from down the open-arched hall, removing his helmet to grin at them, and Obi-Wan had been right in thinking he was far more attractive than the holo had shown. 

“Mij,” Jango manages, a tad breathless as he grasps Mij’s arm in greeting. “Where did...?”

Mij acknowledges Obi-wan with a nod and a smile, before leading them both to a rusted metal stairwell, and down, down, down, to the camp that seemed to have sprouted from the jungle itself. 

There is a Mandalorian in beskar’gam for every tent and then some, every head turned towards their approach, and Blue is nervous and tired and terrified and content and _jatne manda,_ and Obi-Wan steps back to let the Mand’alor meet his people, as they had not met in two decades.

 _Jatne manda,_ Dha chirrs in contentment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m retconning the one mention of a rancor in one of obi’s visions in the last chapter, ‘cause i got rancors and reeks confused. sorry about the confusion! i'm pulling the dyslexia card T0T  
> uhh also i’ve accidentally made obi synesthetic with dha poking around with his brain, which i suppose goes with my putting him on the spectrum anyways *shrugs*


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uhh.. long chapter. because obi wouldn't shut tf up. and chirping is flirting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  ~~As of 10/24/20, all previous chapters have been lightly edited for coherency (and for better wording T◡T) but no new information has been added! you don’t need to reread anything to be caught up, but good lord have i been sitting on these edits for months~~   
>    
>  ***minor retcon/edit corrected and bolded 2/22/21***
> 
> kal skirata’s face cast is Te Kohe Tuhaka, as suggested by @/pallorsomnium (@/atelierdayz on tumblr)! not sure on mij yet but i’m leaning toward someone ridiculously pretty like maybe Sendhil Ramamurthy??? orrr Arjun Kapoor?? Avan Jorgia? 
> 
> **Mando'a:**  
>  _Kyr’tsad_ — Death Watch, lit. “Death Society”  
>  _Resol'nare_ — “Six Actions”, the six tenets guiding Mando life  
>  _"Su cuy'gar!"/“Su’cuy!”_ — “Hello!”/”Hi!”, lit. “You survived!”  
>  _tengaanar_ — slang for a Roman Handshake (headcanoned here as Haat’ade-specific), lit. “open hand”, primary use in Mando’a as verbs “display” or “show”  
>  _alor’ad_ — “Captain”  
>  _kih’Alor_ — used here as “little politician”, lit. “little Chancellor”. less as a diminutive and more as an acknowledgement that Obi-Wan isn’t actually a politician.  
>  _beskar’ta_ — “iron heart”, the elongated hex-shape common in Mandalorian armour designs. also called _kar’ta beskar,_ “heart of the iron”.  
>  _Manda’yaim_ — the planet Mandalore  
>  _"wayii!"_ — an exclamation of surprise, good or bad, used here as more of a “you’ve got to be kidding me”  
>  _dha'jetii_ — "dark jedi", a darksider as opposed to _darjetii,_ "sith"

"I wasn't going to say I told you so," Obi-Wan drawls as Jango steps into the command tent, leaning against a camp table strewn with datapads and flimsi.

Any surprise Jango might have had at his presence is quickly replaced with a resigned sort of fondness. "Then don't," he says instead of rising to the bait. "Myles says the headcount hit three hundred just before we arrived.”

Dha kindly reminds Obi-Wan what Myles looks like — or what his armor looks like, at least. 

Jango raises a brow at him, setting his helmet on the table opposite him and mirroring his position. “He thinks maybe a hundred more _Haat’ade_ will join us. So, do we wait for them, or go ahead with this plan of yours?”

Exhaling with a laugh, Obi-Wan shakes his head. “I’ll need to see when Satine’s next council meeting even is, so no, I do not think we need to wait. I do worry about Death Watch taking advantage of the unrest, though, coming in as a third party for the right to Mandalore, but I do not know what to expect from them; other than running from him for a year, I know very little about Tor Vizsla.”

“Unfortunately, that would make two of us.” Jango looks out the tent flap to the darkening sky, as Haat’ade walk by with lantern light bouncing off the gold aguillettes Obi-Wan hasn't noticed on any other faction. “I met Vizsla in battle only once.”

On Korda 6, when he shot Jaster down.

“Hm, perhaps I can contact Master Ti, see if she can send over whatever information we have on him from the Temple archives.” He doubts it’s very much, their section on Mandalore takes up all of three shelves, but perhaps other knights have come across rumors on missions since last he looked. 

“Myles has spent some time with Death Watch,” Jango sighs, “though I’m not sure how closely he worked with Vizsla.”

_He should have died at Galidraan,_ Dha tells him, Obi-Wan closing his eyes against the sudden bright desert sun and the sound of blasterfire. 

_Who? Vizsla?_

_Myles._

Which doesn’t help him at all, but Obi-Wan has only gotten this far by trusting his ‘saber, so he will not stop now. “Jango, even with the _Haat Mando’ade_ 300 strong, Death Watch is followed by at least a thousand commandos; if they go to war with us, we will be outnumbered.”

And Jango just snorts at him, waving a vague hand to the camp outside. _“Kyr’tsad_ does not train their warriors as we do, they rely on numbers more than skill. The _Resol’nare_ and the Codex did more than cover our cultural and moral beliefs, it ensured our children would be prepared to face a galaxy constantly at odds with us — even the families of Journeyman Protectors know how to defend themselves.”

From what few altercations Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had had with Death Watch, that would make sense: Jango killed six Jedi at Galidraan with his bare hands, yet the commandos Tor Vizsla sent after Satine were easily felled by a padawan. That says nothing to the power of sheer numbers, but Jango is right — Vizsla throws as much power as he can at something until it breaks, the Haat’ade can, and have, built tactics around that.

Dha reminds him that he and Jango are leaders both, that they have more planetside military experience than most Mandalorians even now. Obi-Wan reminds them leading an army of children is not quite the same.

A yawn takes him by surprise, and he’s not entirely sure if it is Dha’s doing or not; Jango still gives a gruff laugh. 

“If I'm boring you, you should say so."

"Oh yes, that's very mature of you, Mand'alor."

He winces, and Obi-Wan immediately regrets trying to return the teasing.

"Should I not call you that?"

"No, that's–" Jango runs a hand over his head, mussing curls longer than Obi-Wan has seen them, Ilum or not, before smoothing them down again. "I did not have a lot of time to get used to the title, before we went against the Jedi."

Ah. Well, Obi-Wan could have certainly been a little more tactful there. "Perhaps I will stick to Jango, then," he says softly, and Dha seems to like that, churring smugly that very few of the Haat’ade will also use his first name. He tells Dha to keep thoughts like that to themselves. "Though it must be strange for the others, when you have been 'Mand’alor' to them for the last fifteen years."

Jango snorts, only a little self-deprecating. "I'm sure Jaster is thrilled I'm so well adjusted."

"To be fair, at least you're not leaving fourteen year-olds in the middle of centuries-long civil wars."

The look in Jango’s eyes as they snap back to Obi-Wan can only be described as _delighted._ "And here I thought you actually believed the Force shines out of Jinn's ass."

"Very mature," Obi-Wan returns with a sigh, but he finds it hard to be annoyed when it's so very in character for Jango to be amused by such morbid humor. "I'll try and comm Master Ti when I get back to the ship, it will be morning on Coruscant soon, but I can't guarantee she will know much. I suggest you ask the commandos that worked with Death Watch or the New Mandalorians if they can bring anything to the table."

"Yes, sir," Jango rolls his eyes, continuing before Obi-Wan can grouch at him, "'Very mature,' yes, thank you, Kenobi."

"Someday we'll have a conversation without insulting each other."

"Ah, but where's the fun in that, _jetii?"_

Rubbing his eyes and yet feeling inexplicably fond, Obi-Wan pushes off the table and gently knocks the side of his fist against Jango's pauldron. "Goodnight, Jango, try not to piss anyone else off enough to go to war with you."

Jango only laughs as Obi-Wan ducks out of the tent. There's a cot in the corner, Jango's pack already on it, so Obi-Wan isn't worried about heading back to the _Legacy_ alone, though it is a little melancholy after so many nights with company. He's not really supposed to contact anyone aside from Yan and Master Ti, but he wonders if Quinlan is maybe still on Coruscant; now that he had almost been back in Obi-Wan’s life again, he finds he misses Quinlan’s absence even more.

“Kenobi!” Jango steps out from the tent, pulling him to a stop with a curiously blank expression as he holds a thick wool blanket out to Obi-Wan; even folded, it looks massive.

Obi-Wan raises a brow. “What’s this for?”

“It drops well below freezing here at night, and I knew you would not ask.” Shaking his head, Jango might even smile a little, and, well, Obi-Wan can’t say no to that, can he?

Dha is strangely silent, but surely still laughing at him, a warm buzz under his skin. “I do have blankets on board, Jango,” Obi-Wan says, a little softer than intended. He still taps the base of his throat in thanks and folds the blanket over his arm. “Goodnight, Mand’alor, you can keep worrying about your people in the morning.”

That smile slips a fraction, as Dha rumbles in discontent; Jango’s voice is still steady when he says, “And you still have many to meet. Goodnight, _jetii.”_

He turns away to push the tent flap back out of the way, and panic rises in Obi-Wan’s throat –he is not sure if it’s Dha’s or his own– and calls after him automatically, "Ah, Jango–"

Jango looks back, frown only half illuminated by the lanterns in the surrounding tents, and Dha is certainly laughing now.

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan hears himself say, holding up the blanket.

A beat of silence, and then Jango snorts again. “Go to bed, Obi-Wan,” he chides fondly, as if his first use of Obi-Wan’s name doesn’t make his blood sing.

_"My dear friend,"_ Shaak Ti greets from the other side of the galaxy, and Obi-Wan had not realised how much he had missed having other Jedi around. _"I'm sorry I did not get to see you before your departure; Mace and Plo tell me it was made with appropriate haste."_

Obi-Wan smiles tiredly as he settles into the pilot seat to face her properly; he is unsure if he appreciates his earlier decision of facing the viewport of the _Legacy_ over the depot, so that if he leans, he can actually see some of the tents at the bottom. "I don't think we stayed more than an hour after we met with them," he agrees, plugging the datapad from Master Windu into the console. "I wanted to thank you, Master Ti, for your help with this."

She waves a hand and smiles with all teeth. _"Come now, Obi-Wan, I've been a Shadow for far too long not to jump at the chance for Republic subterfuge."_

He has to laugh at that, because Quinlan has certainly told him some stories — heavily redacted, of course. "Well, I thank you anyway."

_"You’re welcome, my dear. Now, I doubt you commed me on a unit model that the Senate doesn't even know exists just to thank me."_

"No," he chuckles. "Indeed, I'm in need of some information on Tor Vizsla."

Her smile slips into a thoughtful frown as she folds her fingers before her mouth. _"You've been gone all of three days, Obi-Wan; have you managed to earn his ire already?"_

"No, no, nothing like that. Just that if Satine does not step down peacefully, and truthfully maybe even if she does, I imagine Death Watch will not be happy to hear a _Haat Mando’ad_ is back as Mand’alor."

_"Hmm, indeed."_ Shaak moves back in frame with a datapad of her own. _"I'm sure you know how limited our knowledge is of Mandalore, especially in recent years. Were you hoping to learn something specific?"_

"Rumors, anything the other knights might have heard in the interim since Galidraan that maybe wasn't enough to make it into the Archives. A few of Jango's people have worked with Death Watch, but so far none close enough to Vizsla for us to get a good profile on him. I would not go into absolutely anything blind, and I worry that Vizsla already knows how woefully unprepared we are."

_"Valid concerns, to be sure. With my place on both the High Council and the Council of First Knowledge, I can send you any mission reports that mention Vizsla or Death Watch."_ She taps at her pad, and Obi-Wan is thankful Mandalore has as strong a data signal as they do, or Shaak sending him so much info would be impossible.

"If you could add Bo-Katan to the keywords as well," he says, unsure of any other names important to Death Watch. "And perhaps Jango Fett, if you do not mind: Jango claims to be unaware of what the galaxy thinks of him these days."

Shaak agrees with a hmm, tapping at her pad. _"The only information I've heard personally is that it is likely Bo-Katan murdered her oldest sister."_

"They had another sister?"

_"It appears so. I was on Mandillia for a mission unrelated to Mando'ade, so it did not make it into my report, but it appears the Duke disowned her and erased her from his lineage."_ She glances up meaningfully, and Obi-Wan almost knows what she's going to say before she does. _"She was a spy for the True Mandalorians."_

Obi-Wan sighs and rubs his eyes. "One sister for each faction, how quaint of them."

_"I do not know who of the True Mandalorians she spoke to, and of course the Duke must have disowned her before your own mission on Mandalore. I am unsure_ _if Jango Fett was aware of her."_

"I'll ask in the morning, it may help when speaking with Satine." Or it could make things much, much worse, but Obi-Wan is ever the optimist. Having lost two sisters just before meeting him, no wonder Satine had been so bitter and hostile with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon at first; he's seen far less do far worse to people.

His pad beeps as the first batch data file from Shaak comes in, and Obi-Wan scrolls through the mission titles idly, not planning on actually opening any yet. But then Dha trills as he hovers over a report from Siri Tachi, Obi-Wan feeling suckerpunched as he reads her name for the first time since the first, and last, mission he took with Bant. 

He taps open the file, skimming it quickly for the personal notes Siri always bullet-pointed neatly at the bottom.

"Master Ti, does Vizsla have ties to Coruscant?"

Shaak looks up with a blink of surprise, so it must not have come up in any of her Shadows' reports. _"Don't tell me you've found something already."_

"It could be nothing," he is quick to reassure even as Dha shuffles through his memories of her. "But Siri took an assignment in the Lower Levels before... Well, before. She notes there was quite a bit of chatter about Death Watch at the time."

_"Hmm, perhaps. When was this assignment?"_

He clenches his jaw. "A year after the Invasion of Naboo. Her last mission before Odos IX."

The sigh as Shaak settles into her seat is ancient, reminding Obi-Wan that she had lost a lineage sister that day, too. _"I see. But perhaps the Force is still on our side, one of my Shadows is on a personal mission in the Lower Levels as we speak.”_

Thankful that they do not linger on their shared grief, Obi-Wan rubs his chin thoughtfully. “A personal mission?”

She returns his tired smile, waving her hand vaguely. _“Indeed, Quinlan Vos continues to swindle special treatment out of both myself and the rest of the Council of First Knowledge.”_

“It’s the smile, isn’t it?” Obi-Wan laughs, wondering what Quinlan could possibly be doing; perhaps Dex had called in a favor? Maker, he hopes neither of them are getting into trouble. “That’s his business, so I won’t ask, but could you really pull him away to snoop around?”

_“He heavily implied he would be contacting you within the next few days, so you can ask him yourself. But I trust Knight Vos more than I trust our Sentinels, I know his carefree attitude is a choice, not a state of being. And you know as well as I that he would put this ‘mission’ on hold, if he knew it was for you.”_

Obi-Wan sighs, as if he wouldn’t do the same for Quinlan. “It must be important then, if he’ll try to contact me directly. But thank you, Master: we need to know what we’re up against, if Vizsla has supporters or benefactors on Coruscant.”

_“Indeed.”_ Shaak taps her lips. _"Thinking on it, it is unlikely that Death Watch has much access to the beskar on Mandalore, and most of Concordia and Mandillia has already been stripped, so they likely have contacts in other metal industries for their armor.”_

“Of which there are many on Coruscant.”

_"We knew what we were getting into when we chose to support you from behind,"_ Shaak says, _"but the Force is telling me this goes far deeper than we'd thought."_

He rubs his eyes and pokes at Dha to get their opinion, though he isn't surprised when they just churr at him and go back to picking through his brain.

Shaak laughs softly, sad and affectionate all at once. _"Perhaps we should stop being so surprised that incidents are never as simple as they seem, when they involve one Obi-Wan Kenobi."_

"You say that jokingly, and yet..." Managing a laugh at his own deteriorating position, Obi-Wan pushes back upright and stretches his shoulders. "I hate to leave so abruptly, I believe it is still quite early there, but I'm afraid it's long past dark here, and Maker knows when I’ll be able to fall asleep.”

Her frown returns, and she quickly sends the rest of the mission files, as well as a list of medicinal teas. _“A few of these herbs grow on Mandalore, or are easily found in markets.”_

He raises a brow, scrolling through the list. “Ah, for sleep?”

_“I find some of them are quite potent, so be mindful.”_

“I will, thank you, Master Ti.”

Setting aside her pad just out of frame, Shaak smiles. _“Goodnight, Obi-Wan; I will contact you again when Vos returns.”_

When he awakes the next morning with his breath forming clouds before his lips, Obi-Wan is grudgingly grateful for the extra blanket. He’ll have to thank Jango properly, he hadn’t been particularly decorous in his acceptance of the gift the night before; Qui-Gon is probably frowning at him from across the galaxy.

It’s early enough for fog to still be settled on the floor of the depot –did the building once have a name, he wonders?– until the tents are all but swallowed in it. Obi-Wan dresses quickly, nose already cold enough to start running; he forgoes his fleece-lined leggings in favor of his usual linen ones though, knowing Mandalore heats quickly once the sun is properly up.

After their uncharacteristic quiet spell the day before, Obi-Wan is surprised when Dha immediately chirps to life when he does, following him through a quick breakfast of mealgrain and a ration bar and into meditation back in his quarters.

He had maybe intended to keep this session short, but clearly Dha has other ideas, settling at the front of his mind and all but yanking him back through his own memories, back to Melida/Daan, back to Cerasi, back _to_

 _running for his life from dropping bombs, grabbing Nield’s hand to yank him behind a crumbling wall so the patrol of Daan adults don’t see them, Cerasi carrying Nield down to the sewers on her own back, Obi-Wan following with a blaster raised, Cerasi unarmed and yelling for it all just to_ **_stop_ ** _, Nield’s dying scream ringing in his ears like mythosaur roars and isn’t that funny—_

_Odos IX with Bant at his back, only their third mission as knights and Maker everything is already going so wrong, wrong, fire and Anakin sticking his lightsaber straight through Jango’s helmet, Siri, Siri almost through her master trials when she covers Bant’s body with her own and takes the brunt of the explosion, Bant taking herself off the active roster to study under Master Che in the Halls instead, Obi-Wan pulling away from the Temple until he’s spending more time on Serenno than Coruscant and Bant is always worrying—_

_I’ve seen these,_ he tells Dha, as he realises Blue has been following them around his mind, so unobtrusive that Obi-Wan hadn’t even sensed them. 

_Bo-Katan standing over the body of a woman bleeding out in the front hall of the Glass Palace at Sundari, Obi-Wan on Tatooine he knows it’s Tatooine why is he here where is Luke, fire and Anakin sticking his lightsaber straight through Obi-Wan’s hand and into his chest, a reek head tossed at his feet, Tor Vizsla holding a blaster to Satine’s head while Obi-Wan just_ stands there, _Jango’s tent empty except for the two of them, Obi-Wan fixing one of those gold aguillettes to the gorget of Jango’s armor right where it’s already fastened to his cape, a mini Jango clumsily braiding a scrap of red fabric into the plait hanging from Obi-Wan’s temple, Jango behind bars as Maul laughs at the both of them, Maul Maul Maul, fire, Luke is safe with Owen._

He doesn’t think to check his holocomm until after his meditation, and he's not particularly surprised to see a recorded message from Anakin already — not when they have yet to find a system he cannot slice into.

Obi-Wan sits back on his bunk to open it, watching his brother padawan come to life in marginally better colors than he expects from external comms.

_“Hi, Obi-Wan!”_ Anakin greets with a grin, checking over his shoulder once before leaning in closer to the holocamera. _“I’m bouncing the signal from my comm through Master Dooku’s, so I’ve gotta be quick. Master Qui-Gon and I are going on missions again, in the middle of nowhere, so I don’t know when I can talk again. Although,”_ his grin widens, _“I suppose I’m not supposed to be talking to you at all. Anyways, I got you something from the Mid Levels at a pod race that I absolutely was not a part of, so you’ve gotta stay alive long enough for me to give it to you. Oops, there’s Dooku.”_

Obi-Wan is unsure if the sudden rush of warmth and affection in his mind is his own, or Blue’s, strangely still as strong as it is when he’s right next to Jango, despite the distance. In part panic, part grief, he slams up his shields and hopes Jango is not Force sensitive enough to feel him.

With the sun finally high enough to be considered past dawn, he goes about collecting datapads, several relevant ones from his own makeshift library as well as the one from the Council, which has a wealth of Jedi military knowledge from the Jedi/Mandalorian Wars and an entire document dedicated to their information on Satine — including everything from his mission with Qui-Gon more than a decade before. Master Plo has also kindly made a list of possible weapons and rations suppliers, should it really come to war.

Obi-Wan grabs a pair of gloves from the bottom of his chest of drawers on his way off the _Legacy,_ because he’s _cold,_ dammit, and the Haat’ade are all lucky enough to have gloves as part of their _beskar'gam._

The camp is already alive despite the fog still burning off, breakfasts being made and eaten, watch shifts switching out, and Obi-Wan sees more non-bipedal species among the tents than he's seen belong to any other people. A Drall Supercommando in full armor passes him with a soft, _"Su cuy'gar,"_ and it occurs to Obi-Wan that he had somehow completely missed that the New Mandalorians and Kyr’tsad are all _human._

That Satine had waged war on more than just culture.

"Ahh, well met, Not-Jailbait!"

Obi-Wan almost chokes on a laugh as Mij appears around a tent and the man is even more attractive with that shit-eating grin, reminding Obi-Wan of Quinlan in all the best ways.

"Yes, good morning, Mij," he laughs, clasping Mij's arm in a _tengaanar_. 

"You are far too polite for Jang'ika's company, _vod."_ Patting him on the shoulder, Mij gestures for him to follow and leads him more efficiently towards the center of camp. Haat’ade stare eyelessly at them as they go, but it is in curiosity and appraisal rather than distrust or hostility; Obi-Wan has faced far worse on routine missions with Qui-Gon and he does not mind their scrutiny.

Actually, that they all seem so relaxed with a Jedi in their midst is what makes him uncomfortable. "You can imagine what he was like in the Temple, then," Obi-Wan muses, stepping to the side to let a Nautolan pass them.

Mij laughs, good and loud. "He won't admit outright that he was even there," he says, as they step out into the little clearing outside Jango’s tent. There's a small cluster of commandos just outside, all but one with their helmets under their arms, which Obi-Wan notices Mij seems to have left behind. 

The Gormak in Myle’s armor sees them first, calling out, _"Su'cuy, vod!_ I can't believe Jang'alor did not introduce us before you could disappear last night.” He hands Mij his missing helmet so he can greet Obi-Wan with a proper _tengaanar_ as well. “Myles of Concord Dawn and clan Gilamar, _jetii,”_ he introduces, smile wider than a loth cat.

His grip on Obi-Wan’s arm is firm, maybe a little too firm, and the thought that Myles is trying to test him amuses him greatly. “Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I see my vocation precedes me.”

“Maker, wherever did you find this one, Mij,” the only other human snorts. “Though I suppose I’ve never met a _jetii_ that didn’t speak like a politician.”

Obi-Wan raises a brow, taking in the human’s sand-gold armor and the crest on the left side of their chestplate. “Is the Mand’alor’s _alor’ad_ not a political position, then?”

Myles throws his head back to laugh, and the human smiles as they choke on nothing, holding out their arm. “Fair play, _kih’Alor,_ I yield. Kal Skirata, also of Concord Dawn.”

“Then it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Obi-Wan snarks, just to be a bastard, and gets a laugh even from the Arconan standing next to Myles.

“Bosoloc,” they announce, tapping their closed fist to their _beskar’ta._ “From _Manda’yaim,_ but I have not been past the atmosphere since I was a child. You are from the Coruscant Temple?”

Perhaps it isn’t so surprising from the history between their peoples, that the _Haat’ade_ would still be at least a little abreast on the Jedi’s comings and goings. “Was it the accent that gave it away?” he chuckles, tapping his fist to his own chest and not attempting a handshake. These social mores were all theoretical when learning with Master Nu, the New Mandalorians had adopted Inner Core etiquette very early in the Duchy and it was not as if Obi-Wan could just go out and find a True Mandalorian to practice with. Yet, Dha hums happily and the motions come easy, and he doesn’t seem to have karked it all up just yet.

“She’s only saying that because she doesn’t know where any of the others are,” Myles tells him conspiritously, before hopping away from Bosoloc’s retaliating kick. “But most of us are foundlings, sort of like the Jedi; do you know where you’re from before that?”

This... is not the normal line of questioning usually given to Jedi. “Of course,” Obi-Wan says, settling his hands into the sleeves of his robe. “Unless the Order truly doesn’t know, they tell all the initiates their home planet, and teach them their native language.” Unlike most of the galaxy that still somehow believes the Jedi are child snatchers and cradle robbers, the Mando’ade around him simply nod at this new information; Obi-Wan isn’t quite sure what he had been expecting when he came to Mandalore, but it certainly was not this easy acceptance.

“So,” Kal nudges back in, “you from the Mid Rim?”

Dha laughs in his mind, yanking up images of Stewjon from the very back of his memories as if they can show their new friends. “No, I’m from even further out than you are,” he says. “Stewjon, on the edge of Wildspace.”

The yet unnamed and silent Mando in white armor perks at Myle’s side, slowly turning their head to Obi-Wan. “My _buire_ were both from Stewjon,” they say over external comms, voice a little husky even then, and Dha murmurs _Rattataki, brave, vod, brave._

"Ah then well met, my friend: I rarely meet others from that system.” Obi-Wan smiles at them, because he knows the “apathetic and stoic Mandalorian” stereotype is a front only for outsiders, so this Rattataki’s reservation must go deeper than that. “Your accent, though, you were raised on Concordia?” 

They are silent for a moment, the others seeming to hold their breath, and then they hold out their arm. “Ezovac, of clan Beith.”

“As Stewjoni a clan as I’ve ever heard,” He meets their _tengaanar,_ the hand that wraps around his very clearly made of metal instead of flesh.

Ezovac laughs, just as soft and reserved as the rest of their speech, but perhaps all the brighter for it. “Yet, yours is not.”

This doesn’t hurt him anymore, even as Dha pokes at him quickly in concern; it is still not something easily aired with strangers. “A story for another time, perhaps.”

“Right,” Myles says, casually leaning on Mij as if he were a wall rather than a person, though Mij doesn’t seem to mind, “‘cause I have some more questions for you.”

“Here we go,” Bosoloc mutters.

“How do you know Jang’alor, then?” Myles asks with a salacious grin, and Obi-Wan laughs.

“We met on Lom not a tenday ago,” he says easily, enjoying their surprised tittering perhaps more than he should.

Kal snorts. _“Wayii, kih’Alor,_ you can’t really expect us to believe that.”

“He is not quick to trust,” Bosoloc adds unhelpfully, but it’s Mij that cuts in,

“Then you know that whatever reason he _does_ trust Kenobi for is a damn good one.”

A little surprised at the defense, it takes Obi-Wan a moment to collect his thoughts again. “I appreciate the confidence, I can’t say I’m used to that from _Mando'ade.”_

“Next you’re going to tell us you knew the Duke,” Myles jokes, continuing before Obi-Wan can confirm or deny it, “Can you really move things with your mind?”

Bosoloc kicks him again as Obi-Wan laughs. “At its most basic, yes, I suppose I can.”

“Shove off, Boso, not all of us are lucky enough to have already met a Jedi.”

Mij catches Myles around the waist before he can tip off of his shoulder in his haste to dodge Bosoloc’s pointed boots, smiling fondly enough that Obi-Wan starts to wonder how clan names are picked after marriage. 

"So what was Jang'alor doing on Lom, anyways?" Kal asks, easily sidestepping his tussling companions. 

"I was saving his ass from the _dha'jetii_ in the Whitesand Ruins." Jango steps out of his tent without his helmet, and the commandos around Obi-Wan immediately snap into a Mando salute, a closed fist over the left side of their chests with a respectful,

"Mand’alor!"

Obi-Wan notes Jango seems much more at ease with the title than the night before, only a slight twitch of his lips betraying his surprise. Twittering, Dha reminds Obi-Wan that Jango had gone much of his life calling his own _buir_ Mand’alor; to hear it on the lips of his friends must be just as distressing now as it had then. 

_blasterfire bouncing off beskar’gam, Myles cut out of the sky and hitting the ground in two separate halves, a Kyr’tsad slug hitting Jaster square in the back and his jetpack exploding, Jango pressing Dha's hilt back into Obi-Wan’s hands._

"Good, you've met everyone," Jango says, coming to stand next to Ezovac. "Bosoloc, I need a readout on the weapons capabilities of every ship we have."

"I'll get you medical while I'm at it. Mand’alor." With another salute, Bosoloc ducks away and heads further into the camp, putting her helmet on as she goes. 

"We have a few more Haat’ade coming in before midmeal," Kal tells them with a nod to the empty docking bays, "but we still have to inspect more of the building for stability."

Jango hmms. "Get the pilots on it, they'll be up in the berths helping Bosoloc anyways."

"Elek, Mand’alor." Kal follows Bosoloc from the clearing, a couple of commandos breaking away from their tents to join him. 

"So, we actually gonna start making a plan now?" Myles switches from leaning on Mij to leaning on Obi-Wan, Jango tracking the movement with a raised brow but saying nothing, and, well, Obi-Wan _had_ grown up with Quinlan, so he is not unused to such physicality. 

"What do you mean 'start'?" he asks blandly, to a guffaw from Myles. 

"Ahh, Mand’alor, you always could pick 'em. _Cyar’ika,"_ he turns to Mij, "how do you feel about a foundling?"

"You're not adopting the _jetii,_ Myles," Jango snorts, turning back to the tent with a flick of his fingers for them to follow. 

Even with the five of them, the tent is still spacious enough for them to spread out a little, Myles dropping into one of the chairs by the table while Ezovac takes the other, and Jango leans on his desk. Obi-Wan stays standing, tucking an arm behind his back.

"So, _kih’Alor,"_ Ezovac says, monotonously enough that Obi-Wan isn't sure if they're joking, "this is your arena."

"Mm, yes, unfortunately." It's easy to fall back into this role, Obi-Wan had spent his apprenticeship explaining and educating, catching others up to speed and diffusing the tension around his master's unorthodox methods of negotiation. That these are not Jedi actually make it a little easier for Obi-Wan to organise his thoughts. "The Duchess is holding her quarterly council meeting in three days," he says as Mij settles on the arm of Myles' chair, "All New Mandalorian leaders and her most important advisors will be present, but they're also discussing a new trade route through the Outer Rim, so all of Satine’s governors will also be there at least on holo."

Ezovac hums, the sound crackling over their comms. "Now or never."

"Now or never," Obi-Wan agrees. "I spent quite a lot of time slicing into Mandalore’s communication systems during my mission as a padawan, that I expect Jango to have told you all about or I'm going to be quite disappointed." 

He gets a few laughs for that, Jango releasing a bone-weary huff. "Not the details, and only to those present, but yes, they do know your history."

Obi-Wan had not thought to maybe keep that information need-to-know, because he is not ashamed to have at one time protected Satine, but he also understands what a precarious position he has with the Haat Mando’ade, as both an outsider and a Jedi. "Good, then it will be no issue for me to give Jango a window."

"To do what, exactly? It's not like Duchess Demagolka is going to _fight_ us," Myles is quick to say.

"No," Jango sighs. "But there is no way for this to end peacefully."

"Let it come to violence," Ezovac rumbles, and there is far too many years of history in the sound for Obi-Wan to hope to understand. "I for one would like nothing more than to take these _New_ Mandalorians to task."

"Despite us preparing for it, the _Haat Mando’ade_ do not actually want a war, Ezovac." Jango glances at Obi-Wan, and he unfortunately knows exactly what Jango is saying, without checking with Dha or Blue: "want" has very little to do with it, and everyone in Mandalorian space knows this battle has been building since Korda 6.

He lets out a soft breath. "I regrettably no longer know the Duchess as well as I once did, and I do not know how she will react to her rule being properly threatened for the first time since she took the position." Dha seems to get a sort of thrill at the prospect, implying several things about Satine's leadership that Obi-Wan doesn't quite know if he agrees with. "One of my masters was able to send me some more information about Vizsla, and it isn’t much, but if the New Mandalorians go to war with the Haat’ade, Kyr’tsad will follow."

Mij drums his fingers on his crossed arms, staring out the open flap of the tent. "I agree," he finally says, "I do not think there is a way to take back Mandalore anywhere but on the battlefield."

"But we still have to try," Myles mutters, not sounding very happy about it even if he agrees. 

"I will ask her to step down, first." They had not actually discussed the details yet, but Obi-Wan is glad to see Jango seems to be on the same page. "If she refuses," Jango shrugs, "she will still have to think of some way to challenge us."

"I do not feel good about not striking first," Ezovac warns, their whole body taught, "But we follow you, Jang'alor."

"That's all I can ask of you."

Mij snorts. "Don't let Kal hear you talk like that, or he might actually paint your armor orange for real this time."

"Oh, I'm sure that has a _wonderful_ story," Obi-Wan says, and is far more amused by Jango's glare than threatened. "I saw you break a Jedi Master's nose without hesitation, Jango, over something equally as trivial."

"And I don't regret it," he bites back, "although we seem to have different definitions of _trivial."_

"You punched a Jedi?"

"Myles, you personally saw him kill six _jetiise_ at Galidraan."

"Yes but, cyar’ika, that had been a _battle,"_ Myles says, looking up at Jango with some of that gleeful wonder that Jango had convinced himself he is undeserving of. "This sounds like a brawl."

"'Wasn't a brawl, it was–"

"'A warning,' yes," Obi-Wan makes a show of rolling his eyes. "I'm sure all those padawans interpreted it quite differently."

"You did it at the _Temple?"_

"This whole plan was _your_ idea!" Jango flaps a hand at Obi-Wan. "I didn't realise I was signing up for your questionable wit as well."

He snorts. "You are certainly one to talk, my dear."

"Can I _please_ adopt him, Jang'alor?"

"You absolutely may not."

"And I appreciate the offer, but I'm afraid I'm far past hope to be raised Mandalorian," Obi-Wan chuckles, finding himself flattered by Myles' insistence rather than discomforted. "But yes, Jango hit my previous master with a rather impressive right hook, in front of about half of the Temple’s padawans."

Jango pinches the bridge of his nose. "These are Haat’ade, Kenobi: whatever you hope to shame me by telling them will instead only impress them."

"Then I should not mention that you waited until _after_ the Darksider was distracted trying to kill _me_ before hopping in to my rescue?"

"Kriffing hells, this entire venture was a mistake."

"It's not too late to break camp, I suppose," Mij says, still looking out the tent flap, but even turned away, his teasing is obvious. "Though you'll have to explain to several hundred commandos that they've been denied a promised battle."

"To be fair," Jango sighs, "I didn't promise them anything. No, Kenobi, keep that snark to yourself ."

Even Ezovac is not completely without humor, their steady voice just a pitch higher, "Perhaps we should return to the task at hand. _Kih’Alor,_ what can we expect from the Republic?"

"Ah, that's where this gets quite a bit messier." Obi-Wan retrieves the datapad from Mace from his robes, attaching it to a mini holoprojector that Anakin had built for him for just these sorts of occasions, and pulls up a timeline of Mandalore space as far back as five years before Galidraan. "Though Satine is not officially allied with the Republic, and has no plans to legally confirm it, her rule here was by no means an accident. As I'm sure you know, the years leading up to the civil war between Death Watch and the Haat Mando’ade, the Republic was leaning heavier and heavier on the governors of the Mandalore system, putting pressure on them to properly elect a leader so that the Senate could denounce Jaster Mereel."

"And they want our beskar," Ezovac adds.

"Exactly. I haven't spent much time on Coruscant the last few years for... reasons, so I was not aware the Supreme Chancellor was in talks with Satine about exclusive rights to the mines on _Manda’yaim_ until this week. Chancellor Palpatine will have a hard time convincing the Senate to get too involved in whatever unrest we manage to start here, but these trades are centuries in the making, and Palpatine has gotten his hands dirty for far less." Naboo comes to mind, but Obi-Wan isn't sure how much of _that_ Jango had seen. "Even behind the scenes, I doubt he will stay uninvolved with Kyr’tsad."

Myles bounces his leg as he frowns thoughtfully. "Why do you talk like that?"

Obi-Wan blinks. "Like what?'

"He says it's because he didn't learn Mando’a from a native speaker," Jango tells Myles, and Obi-Wan lets out a sigh. "You should hear some of the idioms he uses."

"And it doesn't sound _wrong..."_ Mij muses.

"Is it really that antiquated?"

"Well, not exactly. It just also does the sound like a Basic accent either," Myles says.

"Like you could have learned it young," Ezovac says, "but not on a planet any of us know."

Rather than ponder just what that could mean, especially since Dha seems particularly amused by this shift in conversation, Obi-Wan turns to Jango. "I told you it wasn't stuffy," he sniffs.

"I said your _phrasing_ is stuffy, not— Why are we still talking about this?"

"Because you somehow found the one Jedi willing to put aside centuries of contention to _rag on you."_

Jango levels his second with an unimpressed look. "Yes, thank you, Mij."

"Most Jedi also don't hold any proper grudge—"

"Clearly your grandmaster is not most, then."

"Very mature, Mand'alor."

"Kriff, forget I said anything." Despite the way he rubs his eyes, Obi-Wan had seen what _truly_ upset Jango looks like in his visions on Ilum, and it's almost endearing the level of dramatics he's putting into this. "What did you find out about Dagobah, then?" he asks before Obi-Wan can tease him about it.

Amused, and a little surprised Jango even cares about the inscription, Obi-Wan shakes his head fondly. "It appears to be in some sort of code," he says, "but certainly not one I've ever come across; I wouldn't even know where to start to find a key."

Myles hmms and spins his helmet in his hands. "Twavv is good with codes," he muses, to an eager nod from Mij. 

"One of our Rodian pilots," Mij explains. "She's been under contract with several system governments to encrypt communiques and court documents."

"Ah, well, this isn't strictly related to retaking Mandalore..." Obi-Wan scratches his jaw awkwardly, but Mij just laughs. 

"She would honestly pay to look at your encryption, Kenobi: the only thing she cares about more is her Mand’alor."

When no one else denies this, Obi-Wan allows himself a laugh in return. "I will make a copy of the holos, then." 

But then he freezes, mental timeline finally catching up with him, because that... If Jango had seen anything of Quinlan and him on Dagobah, if he dreamt it as it happened, that would mean Jango went looking for him immediately after. Had he seen Rret So? Maker, had he seen–?

"Ezovac, I need you to double count the rations," Jango is saying, Blue pressed right up against Obi-Wan’s shields like they're trying to prop him up. "Kal and I were discussing new shipments, I want to get those numbers nailed down as soon as possible."

Ezovac nods sharply and rises in a single fluid motion. "Mand’alor," they dismiss themselves, ducking out of the tent. 

"Same for medical, Mij."

"Already on it, Jang'ika. I've also made a roster of field medics, and a quick training program for those not quite up to speed."

Jango nods, his whole body turned away from Obi-Wan, but somehow it feels like his attention cannot be anywhere else but him. "Good, start rolling that out today, and by the _Ka'ra,_ make sure Myles actually knows which end of a hypospray is sharp."

Myles protests the entire way out of the tent, his partner laughing as he drags him back into the camp to disappear among the tents. Leaving him alone with Jango, who still will not look at him.

"... Your thoughts are very loud," Jango finally says, and Obi-Wan remembers a time when he was not nearly so easily read by strangers. 

Then again, perhaps Jango is not a stranger. 

"Did you learn anything about Vizsla from Myles last night?" Obi-Wan asks instead of anything more revealing, but luckily Jango doesn't call him out on it. 

"No: it was known he fought at Galidraan, so he was never able to move very far up the ranks." Sighing through his nose, Jango crosses his arms. "But Bosoloc worked closely with Bo-Katan Kryze for a time, before she was promoted to Vizsla’s second. Kryze remembers you."

Obi-Wan slips his hands into his sleeves with a raised brow. "I can't imagine _what_ she remembers, I met her only once before she joined Kyr’tsad."

"She'd recognise you by face, and maybe Kyr’tsad knowing just who you are is not ideal." He finally looks at Obi-Wan then, a sort of tired resignation about him, but at least he's not trying to talk Obi-Wan into leaving. "I don't want you visible on the holocall."

Obi-Wan sighs. "Unfortunately, I agree: I cannot ignore my history with Satine, either, because she certainly will not ignore her history with me." Hesitating, Obi-Wan remembers what Shaak had told him the night before. "Do you remember their oldest sister?"

Jango hesitates, a million thoughts racing behind his eyes that Obi-Wan doesn't know him nearly well enough to decipher, but Dha assures him he won't have to, and sure enough, after a long moment of thought, Jango admits, "I never met her personally, Montross was the one to communicate with her when she was running information for Jaster."

"I don't recognise the name, he was one of your _buir’s...?"_

Jango snorts, something dark shuttering behind his eyes. "I take it you know more about the Massacre of Galidraan than the Battle at Korda 6. Only Mij knows exactly what happened to Montross, and good kriffing riddance."

Ah, then maybe Obi-Wan should do a little more reading on the Mandalorian Civil War, if he'd been given such information by the Council; then again, he could also simply ask Mij. "I cannot hide my face forever, Jango," he changes the subject back. "And I will certainly not be sitting out if and when we clash with Death Watch."

"Incredibly, I'm not stupid enough to have thought any different." With a smile that's almost right, Jango pushes to his feet and claps Obi-Wan on the shoulder. "We'll just have to get you some armor, then."

* * *

**“They have a holo of him on Lom, with Dha.”**

**Windu lets out a slow, measured breath, folding his fingers befre his lips and meeting Quinlan’s steady gaze. “Enough to identify him?”**

**“No, but Master Dooku is, and Death Watch certainly already knows who he is.” And Dex hadn’t been kidding, the commando sent to find Obi-Wan was stupider than most rancors, blundering in and out of “interrogations” leaving behind far more information than they’d gained. “Obi’s lucky there are so few Coruscanti criminals willing to sell him out, him or Skywalker.”**

**The sunlit council chamber is empty save for the two of them, and Master Grumpy’s hologram resting on the arm of Windu’s chair. He hasn’t said anything since Quinlan had begun explaining his “personal mission”, and still says nothing now, but Quinlan knows it isn’t for a lack of listening.**

**“I take it you couldn’t garner where the holoreel had come from?” Windu asks, resigned.**

**Quinlan snorts. “The Mando barely knew why there were even on Coruscant; all I could get from the holodisk was that it was commissioned by someone in the Upper Levels.”**

**“Of Coruscant?”**

**_“Commissioned?”_ Master Grumpy rumbles, stroking his beard.**

**“There’s enough of a signal trace left to know where it came from, but not who filmed it, not who ordered it. That the Mando came straight from Concordia with it…”**

**“Hm, you think there is more than one copy?”**

**“Shadows are paranoid by nature, Master, but not without reason. And the Mando I caught was a kriffing moron, there’s no way Vizsla sent him with the only copy.”**

**Windu actually chuckles at that, pushing to sit back in his chair. “If Tor Vizsla is aware of, and threatened by, the existence of another darksaber, it puts everything Obi-Wan is working on at risk, including himself. Have you contacted him?”**

**“No,” Quinlan shakes his head. “Calling him on an unencrypted line would be profoundly stupid, even for me. And Master Ti has somehow instilled at least the pretense of forethought in me, so I also knew I should talk with you before I did anything.”**

**_“Master Ti is a credit to the entire Order,”_ Grumpy agrees, his image flickering. _“Knight Vos, do we want to know what you did with this commando, after you were finished with him?”_**

**Quinlan grins, tucking his arms behind his back in an illusion of innocence. “Come now, Master Grumpy, I am a Jedi — who in fact has no authority to arrest someone on Coruscant. If I left them trussed up on the Judiciary Branch steps with his _very_ illegal modded blaster, well…”**

**With a snort, Windu gives him a wave of dismissal. “Thank you, Knight Vos, that will be all.”**

**“Thank you, masters, and please be sure to mention to the Council of First Knowledge how much restraint I showed in this mission.”**

**“You know it is unbecoming of a Jedi to hyperbolise, Vos.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i slip Myles/Mij into this for absolutely no reason? um. maybe.  
> montross is the only white haat'ade, absolutely every other human is a poc because like. fuck george lucas.  
> and myles is gormak. and trans. because you can’t stop me. (... *shoves casual trans into your pocket like that one guy with the fortune cookies*)
> 
> anyways listen to daughter’s “run” and think of jangobi and suffer with me


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i can't even blame jango for this chapter 'cause he has like. two lines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Mando’a:**  
>  _riduur_ — “spouse”, “partner”  
>  _kih’Alor_ — used here as “little politician”, lit. “little Chancellor”. less as a diminutive and more as an acknowledgement that Obi-Wan isn’t _actually_ a politician.  
>  _tengaanar_ — slang for a Roman Handshake (headcanoned here as Haat’ade-specific), lit. “open hand”, primary use in Mando’a as verbs “display” or “show”  
>  _shebs_ — “backside”, “ass”  
>  _wayii_ — an exclamation of surprise, good or bad, used here as more of a “good grief”  
>  _alii'vod_ — "sibling", a combination of _aliit_ ("clan") and _vod_ ("sibling") to specify a clan sibling versus the more general use of _vod_
> 
> Obi’s armor colors are black (justice) and jade (“a lust for peace”), because our boy is a jedi before he is absolutely anything else.
> 
> ***minor retcon/edit corrected and bolded 2/22/21***

It’s Myles that takes him to see the armorers in the evening, housed in the cargo bay of the only starship parked on the coliseum floor, with quite an impressive array of forging equipment considering they’d had to make it portable. The armorers are just there for repairs anyways, not forging new complete sets of _beskar’gam,_ so they could probably get away with paring down quite a lot.

As Myles leads Obi-Wan up the ramp into the bay, a Wookiee that seems even larger than most looks up from their workbench, and takes one look at Obi-Wan before immediately commenting to Myles about his _“limp, unkempt fur”_ in Shyriiwook.

However, Obi-Wan wasn’t known as the crèche polyglot for nothing. “It’s rather rude to insult someone before you’ve been introduced, don’t you think?”

Myles coughs to hide a laugh and claps the grumbling Wookiee on the shoulder. “Better luck next time, _vod._ Where’s Genelk?”

_“Underfoot. As always.”_

“My height has no effect on my _hearing,_ Chalmun,” the drall from that morning says, appearing from behind a stack of durasteel crates with an offended sniff in Chalmun’s direction. “Really, Myles, I don’t know what you were thinking, pairing me with this walking carpet!”

“Technically Kal was the one to assign you two together.” Myles bounces on the balls of his feet and leans over to stage whisper to Obi-Wan, “They share a _riduur_ and like to pretend to hate each other.”

Chalmun gives several grunts that Obi-Wan can't translate, but the rude hand gesture that accompanies them assures him they’re slang for something quite unsavory; the thought that it might be a _Haat’ade-_ specific colloquialism amuses him greatly. 

“Right, so this is Obi-Wan,” Myles says like he hadn’t heard Chalmun, “Jang’alor’s given him permission to wear beskar, and we need to keep his identity on the downlow with Duchess Demagolka; you have enough spare pieces lying around to figure something out?”

Genelk grumbles, but easily lifts a crate from the nearest stack to get into the one underneath it. “Nothing pure,” he simultaneously warns and apologises, “but we’ve got some alloy cast-offs that should work just fine.”

“I wouldn’t expect pure beskar even if you had it,” Obi-Wan says in bewilderment, looking to Myles for confirmation that he isn’t completely misremembering his lessons on Mandalorian hierarchy. 

Genelk exchanges a quick glance with Myles as well, expressions knowing in a way that positively delights Dha, before the Drall shrugs and digs into the crate. “Well, that point is moot anyways. Here’s a chestplate, it should be mostly quenched bronzium, but it’s got some beskar in it as well.”

Unsure whether to push for explanation, Obi-Wan accepts the pieces of armor that will go over his chest, along with the matching back plate Genelk hands him a moment later. 

_“Leg pieces are in the orange crate,”_ Chalmun offers helpfully from the other side of the cargo bay.

“I know where they are!” Genelk snaps back, but goes to the nearby crate anyways. “Here, these’ll be mismatched, but Twavv brought enough paint to drown Sundari, so you can have a go at bartering her for that.”

“Right, bartering.”

Myles laughs into his fist as Obi-Wan takes the indeed mismatched pieces of leg armor; Maker, even without pure beskar, his arms are already straining to hold it all. Patting his back like he knows exactly what he’s thinking, Myles hums in sympathy. “You’ll get used to it,” he assures, watching Genelk pad around the bay for the rest. “And Twavv is already enthralled in your little cypher, so she’ll be an easy haggle, don’t worry.”

Genelk loads him with enough arm and boot plates that he’s having trouble balancing everything on the backplate, before stepping back to look Obi-Wan up and down. “Your own clothes should do fine in place of a flight suit; I trust you know how to put it all on?”

“Ah, yes, unfortunately.” Satine had been _furious_ that Qui-Gon had them disguise themselves in Death Watch armor on multiple occasions, but no matter how vehemently she rejected Mandalorian culture, she still knew how to put the _beskar’gam_ together.

Nodding, Genelk starts closing all the crates he’d worked through. "The _Mand'alor_ should be the one to give you your helmet, but I don’t think I have any spare made for humans, hmm...”

Obi-Wan straightens with a wince and an apologetic frown. “Actually, I cannot wear a helmet with any amount of beskar in it.”

Myles is only confused for a moment before smacking his own forehead like that’s a thing people actually _do._ “Right, right, freaky Jedi force-powers. Although that somewhat defeats the purpose of trying to hide your face, _kih’Alor.”_

“They’re not freaky,” Obi-Wan returns blandly. “But you’re right, I’ll have to find an alternative; is it alright if I don’t wear the full set?” Qui-Gon had luckily found them both beskar-free helmets back then, but he also knows some _Haat’ade_ clans rarely if ever show their faces to others, and he isn’t sure what the general level of sacred is for the rest.

Genelk just shrugs. “I think it’ll be fine, if no one outside the _Haat’ade_ knows you don’t have one at all; House Mereel and the Fett clan have always been lenient with helmets anyways.” 

“I’ll take him to Ch'Thehvoc,” Myles decides, and Chalmun lifts his head from his work with a pleased rumble.

_“_ _She also does not wear a helmet.”_

“For cultural reasons,” Myles adds, and then gestures to Obi-Wan’s overloaded arms. “Genelk, you mind if we leave this here while we get that sorted?”

The Drall looks blankly up at Myles, completely unimpressed. “Even if I say no, you’re just going to drop it right outside the ship, so we may as well put it somewhere no one is going to trip on it.” Shaking his head, Genelk takes Obi-Wan’s new armor to the workbench next to Chalmun’s, none-too-gently depositing it next to a pile of scrap metal shavings. 

Obi-Wan thanks them both with a _tengaanar,_ unsure what to make of the _Haat’ade’s_ continued, easy acceptance of his presence; he knows trust in the _Mand’alor_ is more akin to trusting familythan trusting a king, but he’s still a Jedi.

Luckily, Myles either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore Obi-Wan’s apprehension, and makes small talk as he leads him back into the camp and through the tents. Questions about the Temple are easy enough to answer, as well as those about Obi-Wan’s padawan mission, and though Myles darts glances at Dha every few minutes, he also doesn’t push the subject with their conversation so public. Oh dear, do Jango’s men know Dha is a darksaber? Obi-Wan surely owes it to them to at least _warn_ them before they see it in battle.

Dha makes a sad sound at how resigned Obi-Wan already is to having to fight alongside the _Haat’ade,_ and soon.

_You’re the one who dragged_ me _out here,_ he reminds them, as they stop at a tent made of light blue canvas; Dha gives the amorphous illusion of sticking out their tongue at him.

“Ch'Thehvoc?” Myles calls by the zippered flap, but barely gets it out before it falls open to reveal a Tatooine Tusken almost too tall to even fit in the tent. She wears no respirator mask, as there is no need in the far-milder climate of Mandalore, but her face is still completely covered by bantha-skin wraps, save for the Mandalorian goggles over her eyes. Her armor is a brilliant, deep green, looking freshly painted, with a flight suit almost the same color as her tent.

“Ah, this would be the Not-Jailbait, then.” She stands to her full height to shake arms with Myles, her whole posture warily leant away from Obi-Wan.

Understandable, considering the galaxy’s general temperament towards the Tusken people.

_“Su cuy’gar,”_ Obi-Wan says with a kind smile. “Although, I have mixed feelings about the sorts of stories Mij seems to be telling you all.”

“Obi-Wan, this is Ch’Thehvoc, Chalmun’s _alii'vod,”_ Myles chuckles, and only then does Ch’Thehvoc offer her arm in greeting. “Ch’Thehvoc, Obi-Wan is the one who finally managed to kick Jang'alor's _shebs_ back to Mandalore.”

She hmms, looking him up and down with new understanding. “I was not expecting a Jedi.”

Obi-Wan doubts any of them were, Jango maybe least of all. “You are perhaps just as surprised as I am, to find myself here,” he says, actually getting a little chuckle from behind her mask.

“You do not seem bothered,” she says and gestures to herself.

“Should I be?” He tucks his hands into his sleeves. “Someone very dear to me is from Tatooine, so though I have not spent much time there, I’ve heard many stories.”

“Is that dear one a human? If so, I’d be surprised if they had any nice things to say about us at all.”

Anakin is hardly a paragon of anti-xenophobia, he still holds many of the biased beliefs he grew up with in Mos Espa, but no Tusken clan ever stole from the slaves, and with Huttese as a bridge language, Anakin had interacted with more Tusken people than most might expect. “I would describe his stories as varied, perhaps; and my beliefs do not allow judgement of the many based on the one.” 

Ch’Thehvoc snorts, but doesn’t seem upset by his explanation. “Then I will attempt to do the same. Myles, I know I’m a delight to be around, but was there a reason for your visit?”

“As a Jedi, a beskar helmet is somewhat out of the question for him,” Myles offers, and Ch’Thehvoc pauses.

“He’s already getting him in _beskar’gam?”_ She frowns as Myles grins helplessly.

“Don’t worry, the excuse is good: they’re trying to keep his identity a secret from Kryze and Vizsla, but that does make not having a helmet a problem.”

The Force bounces around them in amusement, Dha’s laughter only making Obi-Wan feel more at a loss for the subtext. Dha thinks they’re being helpful when they show him a quick scene of two Mandalorians in matching armor putting helmets on each other, and Obi-Wan blithely tells Dha that it was not helpful at all.

“A headscarf will be easiest,” Ch’Thehvoc is saying, back to inspecting Obi-Wan, though now in appraisal. “Are you worried about your eyes being recognised?”

He tells Dha grouchily to stop laughing and distracting him. “No, it is unlikely that they’ll ever be close enough to tell.”

“Hmm, I may be able to put something together that should stay on in battle. What color is your armor?”

Myles opens his mouth, to surely tell her they haven’t decided yet, but Obi-Wan doesn’t even have to think. “Jade and black,” he says, Myles tripping over his own tongue and Ch’Thehvoc barking out a laugh.

“Perhaps you are more _Mado’ad_ than I gave you credit for,” she says, “else you’ve been planning this for a while.”

No, he hadn't ever given thought to painting armor of his own, the possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind until just then, but Dha’s surprised and pleased churring only bolsters his decision. He chuckles, “Or perhaps my motivations are merely that simple.”

_“Wayii,”_ Ch’Thehvoc huffs and shakes her head, though it’s clear it’s all in good humor. “Not many of us go that light with our greens; not many of us share your views of peace. You may have to mix your own paints, then, but I think I have some linen light enough to get the point across.” She ducks back into her tent to rummage around in a giant footlocker, and quickly returns with a folded linen scarf; it’s not nearly as dark as Ch’Thehvoc’s armor, and he can definitely work with that. 

And because he knows he’s already pushed the limits of one culture today, Obi-Wan doesn’t immediately take the fabric she holds out. “Is it alright for me to wear this?" he asks instead, and clarifies, "I am neither Tusken nor from Tatooine.”

Tilting her head, Ch’Thehvoc slowly considers him again. “It could be worn religiously, to be sure, but not all Raiders follow the same tenants; some do not follow any at all. For you, you cannot wear anything like a helmet or hat over it, though a cloak hood is fine, and you cannot wear it half on, half off. To use it to cover your face, you must do so completely, or take it off completely. You may tie it in whatever way you choose, otherwise.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs, accepting the scarf with the same deference that he had accepted the pieces of _beskar’gam._ “Is there anything else I should know?”

“I personally request you do not wear it while you meditate on your gods, nor store it near your place of worship.”

“Both more than agreeable terms. Thank you, I will treat it with care and wear it with honesty.”

After a thoughtful pause, she says in a soft and sort of pleased, curious way, “You are a Jedi, yet you wear Serenno colors and cut your hair short; you speak Mando’a like you were born to it and the care you put into your colors is as well thought out as any _Haat’ade,_ and still you go on to accept a Tusken garment like it is a blessing to do so.”

“Is it not?” Obi-Wan smiles, momentarily wishing he could see her face before berating himself for the thought. “The Jedi are far from any one thing, perhaps because none of us are born as Jedi, so you can imagine the number of cultures and practices I was raised with. I see no reason not to wear a Tusken garment as proudly as I would wear Catharese chainmail.” Which he’d had the pleasure of actually doing, once, during a mission that Qui-Gon barely remembers thanks to a concussion and _way_ too much wine; Obi-Wan still gets stared at in certain cities on Cathar.

Ch’Thehvoc simply laughs, the grip of her following _tengaanar_ firm and strong as it was not at first greeting. “I look forward to walking with you in battle, _jetii.”_

“And I you, _burc’ya,_ though I’m afraid I haven’t battled alongside blasters in many years."

“It’s a good thing I use a gaderffii then, isn’t it?”

She clasps arms with Myles as well before sending them on their way, Obi-Wan folding the fabric to keep safe inside his robes until he returns to the _Legacy._

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” he says, halfway back to the armorers, “are your aiguillettes specific to the _Haat Mando’ade?_ I haven’t noticed them anywhere else.”

“Oh, these?” Myles shifts his helmet to his other hip to lift the gold cordon attached at the top of his chestplate, at the corner where it meets the gorget so that it hangs down the left side of his chest. “We call them _haar ranov'la,_ and they are specific to **_Jango Fett’s_** Haat’ade."

Obi-Wan doesn’t stop walking, but he does slow enough to get a better look at it. “Why name them ‘the secret’?” 

“After we fell at Galidraan, any True Mandalorian that didn’t submit to Kryze or join Vizsla was killed. Enough of us knew Jang’alor was still alive, or held out hope that he was, that we thought it best to pretend to assimilate.” He smiles lopsidedly at him as Obi-Wan blinks in understanding.

"Ah, it was an identifier?"

“We would know immediately if someone was a _vod_ that still followed the codex, to the best of their abilities under the circumstances.” They come to a stop at the bottom of the ramp to the armorer's ship. “The _Haat’ade_ under Kryze also wear them, without the _beskar’gam,_ of course. These," Myles smooths the threads back down over his chest, "have kept us safe for almost two decades; every commando here cherishes them to the same level we cherish our armor.”

"I'm often the butt of jokes about being too scholarly for my age, but watching a culture and custom change _as it happens_ is an enthrallingly unique experience."

Myles laughs at him, of course, but still helps him cart his new armor back to the _Legacy,_ and haggle with the prettiest Rodian Obi-Wan has ever met for paint, in exchange for the encryption coder Anakin had built him the year before. Twavv hasn’t made any progress on the Dagobah inscription, except that whoever coded it is a sadistic bastard, though she promises to have made progress by the end of the tenday.

When Myles leaves him outside the _Legacy,_ he hands Obi-Wan a skein of fine yellow-gold string. “Do with it what you will,” he says, “I don’t know the customs of Jedi clothing, but if things go as poorly with Kryze as you think they will, I imagine you’re going to be around us quite a bit longer.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head in something like wonder, and takes the skein.

He spends the next morning running through the Sundari communications system with Twavv and setting up the holoprojector so nothing is visible that could give away their location. Twavv is confident she can get them a fifteen minute window during Satine’s council meeting, and that should be more than enough time to challenge her and also receive a response; with both signals coming from the same planet, he and Twavv are able to coax the projector into high-res and color, which definitely lends an air of professionalism and validity to their attempt at a very public coup d'etat. 

Jango still hasn’t returned to the command tent when Twavv leaves him for lunch, but that’s fine by Obi-Wan, content to settle at the table with both a datapad and his paint. He catches up on the recent news of Mandalore while he base-coats every piece of his armor black, remembering doing the same with Vizsla blue while Satine screamed at Qui-Gon about respecting her cultural boundaries. They’d ended up disguising her as a slave instead, which had left a horrid taste in his mouth not four years after Bandomeer, but at least they had all made it out of that alive.

When considered, the other option would mean they would instead be going against Death Watch in less than twenty-four hours.

Yan pings his comm just as he’s starting a second coat of black on the greaves, and Obi-Wan has to spend a few panicked moments trying to even _find_ his comm, before he can set it up the holo through his pad for a better signal. 

Yan raises a single eyebrow when his holo finally flickers to life, _“I hope I am not interrupting something.”_ That Obi-Wan usually answers right away goes unsaid.

“Ah, no, my apologies, Grandmaster, I'm a little scatterbrained at the moment and misplaced my comm." He tidies up the table even though Yan won't see it, and it isn’t that messy to begin with, but he still moves any armor still drying out of the way so he won't accidentally drag his sleeve through it. "Is everything alright? On Coruscant?"

Yan strokes his beard to try and hide his fond amusement. _"Coruscant is fine, Obi-Wan, the Temple is fine. Though, I suppose the Senate has not yet heard of anything happening on Mandalore, so that is likely to change very soon."_

"Yes, I suppose it will," Obi-Wan sighs, glad he had placed Dha on the table within reach of his tapping fingers. "We're contacting Satine tomorrow."

_"Very soon indeed, then. I don't suppose you've made any headway on the inscription from Dagobah?"_

"Mm, no, but the _Haat’ade_ have a code breaker that's taking a look at it." Still nothing as of yet, but Twavv is confident in her progress. "And the _Haat’ade_ know next to nothing about the Darksaber, other than it belonging to Vizsla, so it's nice to know we weren't wasting a resource by not checking _Manda’yaim_ sooner."

Yan chuckles, bending slightly to adjust something on his end, and the holo flickers for a moment. _"While helping Jocasta in the Archives yesterday,"_ he says, and Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, _"I came across a journal by a Jedi knight alive around the same time as Tarre Vizsla."_

There's no way Jo would have assured them the Archives had nothing on the Darksaber a year into their search, if there are accounts from Tarre's contemporaries just lying around. Obi-Wan hums thoughtfully, "Surely we would have come across that by now?"

_"We found it mislabelled in the Temple chronology,"_ Yan rumbles, pulling that sour-lemon expression to show just what he thinks of that. _"It was shelved with far earlier Temple accounts, and if Dha's personality is believed to extend to the rest of the Force, I would not doubt our finding it was hindered until now."_

Obi-Wan can't help smiling at that, the idea that Yan might actually believe in the Force having a direct, sentient hand in their lives. Those like Master Plo are not shy about their own beliefs about it, but it is far from the most common dogma within the Temple. "Times must really be getting dire, then, if you're starting to believe in a physical Force."

_"I do not think its physical, I think it orchestrated a series of events that misfiled this journal in such a way that we would not know of its existence until yesterday."_

"Yan, you sound like a bad holohorror."

Yan scoffs, though it is not unkind. _"You have not been gone nearly so long as for me to miss those jokes of yours."_

"I'm not 'gone', Grandmaster," he shakes his head with a snort, "I'm merely away for a while."

But Yan does not continue their raport; instead, his smile drops away to something far more melancholy, for all that it is just as affectionate as it had been when Obi-Wan left the Temple. _"No, my dear Obi-Wan, you have been gone since Lom."_

The only consolation Obi-Wan has to this revelation is that Yan can read him better than anyone, and that he probably hasn't been obvious enough for strangers like the Haat’ade to have noticed. Except, if Yan knows, that means _Quinlan_ knows, and Maker, he's never going to hear the end of it. 

He glances at the tent entrance before speaking, not trusting Dha to warn him of someone approaching. "Now is not really the time, Yan," he says softly, dropping his eyes down to Dha as he picks at their leather grip.

_"Is it not? I'm afraid it sounds as if you've found another part of yourself to keep running from."_

He grumbles, "Well, when you put it like _that."_

_"Hm,"_ Yan raises a brow, _"And are you to tell me that paint on your cheek is_ not _for a set of Mandalorian armour?"_

"Kriff, you're as bad as Quinlan." He searches for a rag, but finding none, simply scrubs at his cheek with the sleeve of his robes. "You can lecture me about my lack of emotional processing when I'm not on the eve of declaring a war," he tells Yan, brooking no argument. "Now, what did you find about Tarre?"

His grandmaster glares at him, promising him that this is far from over, but does lean over to send a file to his pad. _“The author of the journal, Merasska, does not ever mention Tarre by name, but writes often of a Mandalorian Jedi, specifically their odd ’sabre forms. Merasska seems to have been in charge of ’saber practice for the initiates, and was interested in learning what the Mandalorian could bring to Form V.”_

Obi-Wan returns Dha to his belt to pull his pad closer and bring up the file from Yan; he skims the first entry, gleaning very little about the sort of Jedi Merasska would have been, but the entries number well over three hundred, so he’ll have plenty of content to figure that out later. Maker, he’s not sure how he’s going to find the time to get to this as well as the files from the Council and Master Ti. “I was under the impression the Vizslas preferred something akin to Form VI in _bes’kad_ combat.”

_“... I’m not sure where you would have gotten that impression, we have only three accounts of a Vizsla regularly using a bes’kad for battle, excluding Tor and the Darksaber.”_ Yan taps through his own pad, the signal too weak for Obi-Wan to get a read on his expression, but Dha starts poking at Obi-Wan’s brain, and he sighs, less than impressed.

“More osmosis-knowledge from Dha, it seems, if their snickering is anything to go by.” He sets down the pad to rub his eyes, and _s_ _he faces off against a Mon Calamari in the Temple training salles, spinning her black ’saber to adjust her grip before diving forward–_

_she is knelt on one knee in the hall outside the crèche, speaking to an initiate from Yoda’s species who knows far too many curses in Shyriiwook–_

_her darksaber sings to her, deep, mournful, a plea for her to get back to her feet, to find the Mand’alor, to do_ something–

_that Mon Calamari tries to speak to her of “vergences”, of the Force wrapping itself around a person who’s somehow more special than the rest–_

_she takes her ’saber apart every time she meditates, in hopes of one day waking up and suddenly understanding its existence, her own existence, why so few of her people understand that she can follow the Way, can keep to the Resol’nare and still follow the Code of the Jedi–_

_she is Mando’ad before she is Jedi, and her master knows this, understands that her duty to her Mand’alor will always outweigh her vow to the Temple–_

_she leaves when she is called._

All at once, Obi-Wan is exhausted, huffing into his palms before pushing one hand through his hair. “Tarre was a woman,” he sighs as Dha mumbles apologies behind his shields. 

Yan frowns. _“All our records have masculine pronouns in Basic; was this a mistranslation from Mando’a?”_

He doesn’t answer right away, closing his eyes to try and put himself back in Tarre’s mind for a moment, but he doesn’t find anything he didn’t already know. “No,” he murmurs, “at one time, that was correct, I think until she left the Temple to return to Mandalore.”

_“Ah.”_ Yan looks back at him sadly, and Obi-Wan winces. _“I’d imagine it’s quite distressing to experience that again; are you alright, padawan?”_

“I’m fine.” And it isn’t really even a lie, he’s been comfortable in his own body since Qui-Gon had personally taken him to the Halls of Healing to make sure of that; no, experiencing someone else tearing down the centre, the Temple with a grip on one half and Mandalore on the other, _that_ is going to come up in his meditations frequently in the coming weeks. “Nevermind about Tarre,” he sighs, closing the file on his datapad. “Master Ti said Quinlan might contact me, but he hasn’t yet; did you find anything about Tor on Coruscant?”

And Yan does not push the way Qui-Gon would have, instead he follows the change in subject as easily as before, _“That is, regrettably, a two-fold answer.”_

“Ooh, I love double bad news.”

_“Please restrain yourself, padawan.”_ But he’s smiling again, barely visible under his moustache. _“I do expect Knight Vos to recount the story to you in his own words, but in summary, there was at least one Death Watch commando asking around Coruscant about you.”_

Obi-Wan rubs his eyes again. “Kriff.”

_“Luckily, they were lacking in enough mental facilities that they made quite the footprint during their... investigation. My understanding is they even tried to threaten FL0.”_ Yan shakes his head, upper lip curled into a sneer and smile both. _“It appears Death Watch received a holo of you wielding your ’saber, commissioned by someone on Coruscant.”_

“How the kriff did they get a holo of me?”

_“They hid themselves in the Whitesand Ruins on Lom, and I suspect they were Force sensitive, quite powerful, if neither of us sensed them there.”_

**“To be fair, there were quite a lot of things going on at the time.” But had they really missed something that obvious? For the holo to have been worth anything, the camera would have had to be close enough that at least one of them would be identifiable, which is… close. Ah. “They weren’t in the ruins,” Obi-Wan realises bitterly. “The Mirialan, I thought it was strange they would have been able to drag themselves back to their camp with their injuries.”**

**Yan blinks. _“Someone placed them there.”_**

**“And we didn’t have time to check the rest of their camp, truthfully I didn’t even think to.” He’d been rather preoccupied with Jango at the time. “If… whoever was commissioned set up a holocamera somewhere in the camp, the tent maybe, and used the Mirialan as bait, I was certainly close enough to trip some sort of sensor.”**

**Stroking his beard irritably, Yan closes his eyes in thought. _“And then made their way to Coruscant, we’re sure of that much. But after that, it was taken to Concordia, and then returned with Vos’ commando; it seems rather convoluted, no?”_**

**“It rules out Death Watch as the commissioner, at least,” he mutters, grabbing his stylus to start taking proper notes. “It was likely a bounty hunter sent to Lom, where they somehow knew we would be, and then delivered the holo to Coruscant.”**

**_“That follows,”_ Yan agrees.**

**“That step would be useless, if Tor Vizsla hired the bounty hunter.”**

**_“Which leaves many questions about the commissioner’s relationship to Death Watch, especially since we’re seeing increased communications from the Lower Levels to Concordia, where we believe Vizsla’s base of operations to be.”_**

**Obi-Wan pulls up short, stylus pausing over the screen. “Twavv mentioned there being a strange influx of communications from Concordia to Sundari, much more than usual for this time of year.”**

**His grandmaster rumbles unhappily, no longer stroking his beard so much as tugging on it. _“Proceed with caution, Obi-Wan, if Vizsla knows of Fett’s return, he may be expecting you to contact Duchess Kryze in person.”_**

**“Please, we’re not that stupid.” And Obi-Wan doesn’t really trust Jango to be the same room as Satine without just shooting her, which _certainly_ won’t help the politics of reinstating a Mand’alor. “I’m deeply concerned about just how much Vizsla is aware of, if he knows what the _Haat’ade_ are doing.”**

**_“He is aware of your ’saber, and that is enough to pursue you regardless.”_ Yan sends him another file, though Obi-Wan’s eyes are starting to cross with all this new information and it’s a little difficult to read. _“The other side of this two-fold is also from Vos’ commando: Tor Vizsla sees the Darksaber as a sign of his divine right to rule.”_**

Dha makes a sound like a shriek hawk, and their rage is separate from his own, but, oh, is Obi-Wan enraged — maybe it's Tarre’s, sticking to his brain like a latent fingerprint, but that is a theory for later. “Tarre would have _despised_ that,” he grits, and it probably says an awful lot about the last few years that Yan takes this into stride without pause.

He sighs. _“Be that as it may, Vizsla is likely to see you as an even greater threat to his rule than Jango Fett."_

“This is the worst.”

_“I do not envy the position you have found yourself in, no.”_

“Kriff, and I’m going to have to explain this all to Jango, too.”

As if summoned by Obi-Wan’s exhausted misery, Jango appears at the entrance to the tent, pausing halfway through when he sees Obi-Wan already watching him. “Explain what?” Jango looks between Obi-Wan and the holo of Yan with a quickly-darkening expression, and kriff, Obi-Wan doesn’t even know where to start.

“It seems I may have usurped your spot as Tor Vizsla’s ‘Least Favorite Person in the Galaxy’.”

“That isn’t an explanation, Kenobi.”

“No,” he agrees softly, “it is a warning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AIGHT SO I'VE BEEN WAITING TO USE THIS HAAT’ADE-TASSEL THING FOR A LONG WHILE CAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS A COOL DETAIL FROM BOBA'S OT DESIGN and it has come to my attention that it is not actually an aiguillette, at least not the sort I was thinking of, and is in current continuity either Wookiee hair or human hair from padawans he's killed (ღT◡Tღ) so just like..... ignore that pls  
> 
> 
> i swear i meant to actually get to satine in this chapter, but then the first section got long because _culture_ happened, and the second section got long because _lore_ happened, and then i realised i was a fool to think i could build up to and get through everything in 5,000 words, and i'm not even sorry


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jango searches his eyes for something Obi-Wan still isn’t sure if he finds, and even with Ch’Thehvoc’s scarf between them, he does know what Jango is thinking.
> 
> This does not end here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (if you’re curious about obi’s headscarf, [george lucas straight up stole berber culture for the tusken raiders](https://crispyjenkins.tumblr.com/post/632831655780990976), so i focussed on non-religious berber wrapping styles in my research, although i did look into many niqab styles as well; i mainly had [these](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh7iiTEqjpk) [two](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbt2B4v1Skk) videos in mind for obi.  
> [here's](https://monoskop.org/images/4/4e/Said_Edward_Orientalism_1979.pdf) a free pdf of edward said’s book “orientalism”, and i highly recommend reading at least the introduction, to better understand the level of appropriation in star wars media as well as western media as a whole, and why it’s a problem in the first place)
> 
> this chapter was supposed to be nothing BUT the holocall with satine. clearly that worked out as planned.
> 
>  **Mando’a:**  
>  _kyr’bes_ — “skull”, usually specifically a mythosaur skull á la Jaster’s clan crest; also colloquially “crown”  
>  _hal’cabur_ — one of two chest pieces below the gorget and above the stomach plate  
>  _’kad_ — slang shortened form of jetii’kad “lightsaber”, lit. “Jedi’s saber”  
>  _mandokar/la_ — the epitome of Mando virtue, a mix of zeal, tenacity, loyalty and aggression; with suffix _la_ , “having mandokar”, having the right stuff  
>  _shabuir/e_ — an extreme insult, mostly accepted in fandom to be an insult of an individual’s ability to parent (from buir/e), which is an intrinsic part of Mandalorian psyche and identity  
>  _or'dinii_ — “idiot”, “fool”, “moron”  
>  _gai bal manda_ — Mando’a adoption ceremony, lit. “name and soul”  
>  _riduur_ — “spouse”, “partner”  
>  _'ika_ — diminutive suffix, similar to the suffix “ita/o” in Spanish. generally used only by close family and friends (here combined with _ad_ , “child”)  
>  _haar ronov'la_ — lit “The Secret”, the cordon/tassel/aiguillette from Boba’s OT armor design, created specifically for this fic  
>  _kih’Alor_ — used here as “little politician”, lit. “little Chancellor”. less as a diminutive and more as an acknowledgement that Obi-Wan isn’t _actually_ a politician.  
>  _"Vor entye"_ — lit. “I accept a debt”; "thank you", a little more formal  
>  _demagolka_ — (from mandoa.org) “someone who commits atrocties, a real-life monster, a war criminal - from the notorious Mandalorian scientist of the Old Republic, Demagol, known for his experiments on children, and a figure of hate and dread in the Mando psyche”  
>  _dar’mando’ad_ — “no longer a mandalorian” as a proper noun, from _dar’manda_ which is the **state** of not being mandalorian

On a whim, Obi-Wan scratches a _kyr'bes_ on the underside of his left chest piece,the bronzium-beskar plate only bowing under the songsteel vibroblade Quinlan had given him after a stint in the Halls with a Melvaran mud flea infection. 

In the dim chill before sunrise and after his meditation, Obi-Wan traces the etched lines with the jade paint he’d mixed from three different yellows and a blue almost as deep as Jango’s. Dha chitters at him quietly in interest, wondering why this was the detail from his visions that he had latched onto, and Obi-Wan gently pushes Blue deep enough into his mind that they won’t hear him answer,

“He said he never intended to reclaim his title.” Obi-Wan sets aside the _hal’cabur_ to dry, and pulls the rest of the chest pieces towards himself to finish the jade edging he had started before getting distracted with the _kyr’bes,_ “Yet he never stopped honoring it.” 

_You care too deeply,_ Dha tells him, somehow conveying the emotion of a head shake.

“You started this,” he retorts, and Dha laughs at him.

When he dresses in the full kit for the first time, physical pieces of himself settle into place with each plate, like he hadn’t realised his skin didn’t fit quite right until the discomfort was gone. Perhaps it’s that he was able to fix the attachment braces to his Jedi tunics and breeches instead of a ready-made bodyglove that makes him feel so much more at home than the Death Watch disguises had, that he’s able to keep a piece of himself with him this time.

Then again, even on loan, this armor is _his,_ until Genelk and Chalmun ask for it back. It’s Jedi motifs he’s lined on the edges, it’s Jedi philosophy behind the moons painted on either side of his gorget, it’s his own purpose and path that had him pick these colors in the first place. He keeps the deep red obi from Yan under the utility belt Myles had found for him, tucking Quinlan’s songsteel blade into his boot, and he knots his padawan obijime loose around his throat. 

It’s the only piece of his padawan robes he had kept after his knighting, the metal segment simple enough in form, but would be perhaps too obviously Jedi if he had it around his waist. He keeps it outside the high collar of his tunic, though, knowing it won’t be visible at all once he puts on Ch’Thehvoc’s headscarf. 

And then, because he’s _cold, dammit,_ Obi-Wan pulls on his robe over it all, and tries not to think of Tarre doing the same.

As soon as he steps into Jango’s tent, Mij hands him a cup of caf and only offers a murmured, “You’re going to need it,” before slipping past Obi-Wan back into the camp and leaving him thoroughly bewildered.

Jango doesn’t look directly at him, sighing as he drops into one of the chairs at the table still strewn with maps and datapads. “He thinks I’m irritable when I don’t sleep,” he explains mulishly, and Obi-Wan frowns as he takes the seat across from him.

“Why didn’t you sleep?” he asks, savoring the warmth of the worst instacaf he’s ever had the displeasure of drinking.

Jango grunts, waving a hand at a lit datapad open on a text profile of Tor Vizsla. Wincing, Obi-Wan picks it up and skims the information, though it’s only a little more than what they’d started with; it does all but confirm Tor is based on Concordia, and suggests he hadn’t had the Darksaber until just before the Mandalorian Civil War, which begs the question where it had been _before_ that.

It looks like Twavv has hacked the Coruscant Judicial Branch’s database as well, and they have a mugshot of the commando who’d been poking around about Obi-Wan; his armor is Death Watch blue.

“My apologies, Jango,” Obi-Wan sighs, setting the pad back down, “It seems I’ve pulled more unwanted attention toward the _Haat’ade.”_

“What, by wielding your own darksaber?” Jango scoffs, turning to glare out the tent entrance. “I first saw you use your _’kad_ on Dagobah, I knew that if Vizsla found out, he would put a bounty on your head, if he didn't come after you himself. That’s why I finally went looking for you.”

Obi-Wan has to close his eyes for a moment, as if it will keep him from seeing the implication, that this stupid, beautiful man had dropped everything at the first real danger Obi-Wan had been in since Naboo. He hadn’t searched Obi-Wan out sooner, when his duel with Rret So was the first event Jango had seen in real time, because every other life-threatening situation he could have seen Obi-Wan in before that would have already passed. The first time Jango would have been able to _do_ something, he... did.

When he can finally look at Jango again without saying anything he might regret, Jango is already looking back, his gaze somehow puzzled and soft all at once as it flicks over what little of Obi-Wan’s armor he can see. Part of Obi-Wan panics that he’ll be able to see through to the other side of the left _hal’cabur,_ before he realises he might not mind if he did.

“You were also on Lom,” he eventually says, when the silence has stretched on far longer than it should, “it’s possible Vizsla already knows of your return.”

The Mand’alor snorts. “If he hasn’t noticed anything amiss in the Mandalore system by now, he really is as stupid as Jaster used to say. Don’t worry, Kenobi, we’re prepared for it.”

“‘Don’t worry,’ he says, ‘we’ll just go up against an army three times our size,’ he says.”

Jango barks a laugh. “Three and a half.”

“You’re impossible,” Obi-Wan shakes his head, but smiles fondly, too. “All the better to keep my identity a secret then, I suppose.”

“Perhaps, if it does come to blows, you shouldn’t use your ’saber, either.”

Dha has a few choice words for just what they think about that, even if Obi-Wan does sort of agree that they're conspicuous at _best._ “I’ll be useless to you with just blasters,” he retorts, though he is a fair shot; he knows what Jango is going to say before he opens his mouth, “And _no,_ I will not be staying back. I said I would see you to Mand’alor personally, and I meant it.”

Jango scowls, tugging off his gloves and tossing them onto the table. “Which you could do off the battlefield–”

“Jango, if you really think I’m going to sit any of this out, then I worry you lack the mental capacity for a leadership role.”

“You’re the one walking around in _light green armor,_ the few Mandalorians I ever knew to wear it so obviously went and willingly joined Kryze!”

Obi-Wan leans back to look at him critically, and he’d be almost... touched, if he weren’t so irritated. “No peace was ever won by lying down and letting others win it for you. I appreciate your concern for my religion, but inaction is violence, also; Mandalorians of all peoples should know the Jedi will fight for what they believe to be the right path.”

It’s a bit of a low blow and they both know it — it doesn't mean Obi-Wan is _wrong,_ either. 

Face twisted, Jango throws up a hand in frustration. “Fine, and when the Republic figures out who you are, because they _will,_ you can be the one to tell them why a 'galaxy's peace-keeper' is trying to overthrow a pacifist.”

Obi-Wan should probably be flattered he cares so much about his cultural and spiritual wellbeing, but the sentiment doesn’t stick when Jango had somehow come out of _living Obi-Wan’s life_ actually thinking that he'll just sit aside, thinking that this would be the first time Obi-Wan had weighed an outcome against violence, and chosen the many’s needs above his own. 

Though Obi-Wan also isn’t under the illusion that part of this isn’t just Jango _worrying_ about him, wanting to protect him, it just proves how little mandokar Jango actually sees in him, and it stings more than he thought it would, that Jango would sooner see him stay behind at camp than fight beside him on the same field. Apparently Obi-Wan has not earned that right yet, to be worthy of the same expectations a Mand’alor has for their commandos. 

But Obi-Wan will cling to that _yet,_ because his duty protecting Jango’s back is far from over.

“Is all of this because Vizsla has it out for me personally?” he asks blandly, taking the way Jango's lips twitch as answer enough _._ “This is far from the first time someone of political standing has put a price to my life.”

“As someone who’s been on both sides of a bounty, the frequency doesn’t make it _better,_ Kenobi.”

He scoffs, allowing himself a tiny trivial use of the Force to warm his caf back up to almost scalding. “We’ve already discussed this, and I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish by beating a dead bantha.”

“Technically, _jetii,_ we _haven’t_ discussed it,” Jango growls, but accepts defeat, “Fine, it’s your own head on the line.”

“Yes, thank you for your permission to make my own adult decisions, Mand’alor.” 

“You’ll forgive me if I’m intimately familiar with your track record of ‘adult decisions’.”

“Well, one does manage to make quite the variety, when forced to abandon their childhood abruptly and prematurely.”

“Oh, you're actually admitting that _shabuir_ and his grandmaster karked you up that far back?”

“You’re impossible.”

And impossibly, Jango looks at him just like he had on Ilum, somehow smiling by intent alone, and Obi-Wan hadn’t quite realised how often he's thought about the Jango from those memories.

Obi-Wan sighs in affectionate disbelief, and tips his head onto the back of his chair. “It appears we are still incapable of conversation without insult.”

“Maybe I’m just not used to subordinates giving me lip,” he returns with a snort.

“In what world am I your _subordinate,_ Jango?”

“You’re the one telling everyone you’re willing to follow your Mand’alor into the jaws of a mythosaur.”

_reek blood splatters his face, Anakin’s enraged scream drowned out by the roar of the reptile ripping the reek’s head slowly from its shoulders, messy and scalding and too loud too loud why can’t he look awa—_

Obi-Wan flinches, splashing too-hot caf all over his hand and down his wrist, but he can only stare at it with a backseat fascination as it soaks into his sleeve. “Ow,” he says dully, like it’s happening to someone else.

Jango doesn’t insult him by jumping to his feet, or shouting in alarm, or asking if he’s alright: no, instead his expression darkens, eyes flicking between Obi-Wan’s face and his cup as if knowing exactly what had happened in the span of a heartbeat.

Obi-Wan doesn’t know what to tell him, and Jango doesn’t ask, simply plucking the flimsi cup out of Obi-Wan’s hand and standing to snatch a rag that looks like it had at one time been a handkerchief from the other desk. Jango doesn’t offer, and Obi-Wan doesn’t ask him to, but Jango still silently helps him clean up, and Obi-Wan lets him.

Mij brings them curry for midmeal with Twavv on his heels, and the rest of the afternoon passes finalising the plan for the holocall. Jango doesn't draft a speech —though it's not as if Obi-Wan expected him to— but he does spend an endearing amount of time re-hemming a red rapier cape that looks like it's seen better days. 

_Myles kept it from Galidraan,_ Dha murmurs, and Obi-Wan finds Jango's care with his hand-stitching even more endearing than before. The red makes his heart ache. 

It's only after Twavv leaves them just before thirdmeal that Obi-Wan notices Jango watching him, gaze on his face rather than his hands that tinker with the hijacking device that will intercept Satine’s holo signal, and though he can't see Jango’s lips, his eyes are crinkled at the corners. 

Obi-Wan smiles helplessly. "What?" he prods, and only gets a snort for his trouble, Mij not even bothering to look up from the map he's marking. 

"You're still cold even in _beskar’gam,"_ Jango shakes his head, fully smirking now. 

"And you continue to be surprised by things you should have grown used to, with my memories in your head." Even with the warmth of the day, it is shaded and cool in Jango's tent, and though not as far north as they could be, the shipping depot is still in a considerably cooler climate than Obi-Wan is used to on Mandalore. "Come now, Jango," he says, as Jango just laughs at him, "who's to say I'm not wearing the robe to remind you all I'm not actually Mandalorian?"

Jango still smiles, but Mij freezes at his side; though his expression remains blank, if a little strained, Mij's shields aren't nearly as strong as his Mand’alor's, and his shock and unease are as clear in the Force as if he'd spoken them aloud. Grumbling, Dha gives Obi-Wan no explanation for such a reaction, except to mentally slap him on the wrist. 

"You're right, _jetii:"_ Jango says, a single pat on the shoulder all it takes for Mij to return to his map as if he had never stopped, "your memories _have_ been in my head, including all the times you would steal Jinn’s robe on even temperate planets, so I don't know who you're trying to fool."

Obi-Wan sniffs in offense. "Sarcasm is not against the Jedi code," he reasons, earning a bark of laughter from both men, and from Dha. 

Then, cryptically, Jango says, "Perhaps it would be funnier if you did not undersell yourself to do so, _or'dinii."_

"That's twice now that you've insulted me vaguely enough that I'm no longer sure of what you are trying to insult me about."

"Why don't you ask your _’kad?"_

"The day Dha makes more sense than you is the day I go and join _Kyr’tsad."_

Mij feigns a stricken expression. "Please don't join _Kyr’tsad_ , the last thing they need is a darksaber-wielding space wizard with a death wish."

_You're too good for Vizsla anyways,_ Dha adds helpfully, bouncing around Obi-Wan’s mind with flashes of him in Vizsla blue putting a vibroblade through Tor's ribs while he sleeps. 

It's certainly more efficient than meeting him in battle, at least. 

Jango lets Obi-Wan keep working on the hijacker even when he retreats to his cot, separated from the rest of the tent by a sheer linen curtain that had not been there the day before, hung between two supports. If Jango didn’t have all the tools Obi-Wan needed, he would have gone back to the _Legacy,_ but as it were, Obi-Wan stays at Jango’s table with a single lamp lit long after Jango falls asleep, making sure no one in Sundari —or on Concordia for that matter— will be able to trace the signal back to the _Haat’ade’s_ base. 

Twavv had done most of the work in that respect, setting up proxy signals all around Mandalore space to confuse anyone who tried, but Obi-Wan knows Satine’s comm system inside and out, so it had been left up to him to program safeguards into the interception signal itself. It’s a little more advanced than anything Obi-Wan has done since he was a padawan, and he finds his eyes crossing on multiple occasions; even with Dha’s questionable help, it takes him a little longer to wrangle the coding than he’d have liked. 

Only when he’s sure no one is going to find the depot before the war actually starts does he finally switch the hijacker off and push it across the table away from himself. He rubs his face with both hands and refrains from groaning tiredly, all too aware of Jango sleeping just across the room; when he pulls them away, his palms drip red.

The rag that still smells like cheap caf is thankfully dry by now, hanging over the back of the chair Mij had occupied most of the day, and is only a little coarse when Obi-Wan snatches it up to hold to his nose. With a glance back at the curtain to make sure he hadn’t woken Jango, Obi-Wan steps out into the silent camp and sits on the ground right next to the tent entrance. 

He can't remember having a bloody nose, not like this, since Melida/Daan.

Sitting in the fog rolling in from further North, wrapped up in his robe and lamenting the fact he had forgotten his gloves on the _Legacy,_ Obi-Wan notes Dha has gone suspiciously quiet. He doesn’t push, though, content to sit in the silence of a night so late it’s morning while he waits for his body to stop fighting him.

Obi-Wan had dreamed of Cerasi’s death nine times before the strain and sleepless nights had caught up to him, and he’d scared the shit out of her and Nield by passing out an hour before Qui-Gon made it back to the planet. This certainly doesn’t feel as bad, or, maddeningly, nearly as coherent: at least back then he had known what the Force was trying to tell him.

He shivers in the pre-dawn and flexes feeling back into his fingers. It’s marginally warmer in the tent, but he also has the ridiculous worry that Jango will somehow... sense the blood if he stays too close; he’ll take numb hands over trying to explain any of this to the Mand’alor, no contest.

As the night wears on, Obi-Wan cleans up his face and shoves the rag mulishly into his robe pocket to deal with later, pulling out the skein of string from Myles instead. There’s no way he’ll be able to fall asleep now, so he sets himself to braiding a cordon as complicated as he dares, something to keep his mind occupied with anything but Satine or Jango. And Jango. Kriff, Quinlan is probably right: he does have a type.

Halfway through, Obi-Wan realises he’s not meaning to keep this, that he’s planning on giving it to Jango —who still doesn’t wear one like the other _Haat'ade_ — and he’s not sure what to make of the sorts of pieces he’s latching onto from Dha’s visions, why it’s _this_ that he’s decided to self-fulfill.

When his fingers are too numb to continue, Obi-Wan knots off the aiguillette and tucks it away, yawning into the back of his hand. It’s too close to dawn for him to justify going all the way to the _Legacy_ just to trek back down, anyways. Instead, he shifts to his knees and wraps his hands in his sleeves before setting them on his thighs, closing his eyes to sink into a healing meditation that will keep him going until whatever happens with Satine... happens. He inhales deeply _and–_

_He’s on Mandalore, sixteen and terrified, leveling a blaster at a sapient being for the first time since his escape from Xanatos' mines with Qui–_

_He rolls over in bed and lifts Quinlan’s arm to make room for himself under his chi–_

_He can do nothing but stand there as Tor puts a blaster bolt through Satine’s head, but then, part of him doesn’t even want to save h–_

_He can do nothing but stand there as Tor knocks Jango’s helmet clean off and puts a blaster bolt through his throat, and Obi-Wan swe_ ars he’s going to raze the city to the kriffing **_grou–_**

_He’s on Mandalore, sixteen and terrified, tackling Jango out of the way of Tor Vizsla’s latest assassination attempt, but wait, no, that’s not right, surely it had been Sati–_

_He rolls over in bed and finds the other half empty, but he isn’t worried, hearing Jango’s soft voice reading to Boba just down the ha–_

_He stands there and lets Satine wrap both hands around his throat, and it doesn’t even hurt, it’s fine it’s fine if it’s like this it’s fin–_

_He stands there and lets Jango wrap both arms around his shoulders, and it hurts, not being able to save Anakin, but Jango holds him close like that can somehow hold him togeth–_

_Heavy raindrops beat against the window, the sea thrashing outside until the whole planet looks like it’s going to sink into the waves, and their apartment is small, one bedroom, two bunks, not nearly enough space for three, but this feels more like home than any of the camps with the Young, than anything after his room in the crèche. Boba doesn’t mind it, likes having his buir within reach and fewer places to lose his toys, and Jango likes every centimetre of his home having a function. Obi-Wan is the only one surprised by how easy it is to make room for him in their tiny life in Tipoca City, how easy it is for him to balance this with his duties to the Order, to the vode. The longnecks aren't too happy always having him under foot, but Obi-Wan knows that's more to do with him questioning their ethics at every turn, and not with him taking up any remaining space in their template's apartme–_

Dha tumbles back out of his mind as if kicked from it, and had... had Obi-Wan done that? He's never been able to make them do anything before, least of all make them shut up.

_Rude,_ they intone, letting Obi-Wan rouse himself from his meditation and open his eyes to find the sun already risen, the camp bustling with life as everyone starts their day. It's strange, actually, seeing so many just continue their lives like the coming afternoon won't herald war; only a few people have a direct hand in the holocall, while everyone else just... waits. 

"How long have you been sitting there?"

Obi-Wan blinks and follows a pair of armored legs up to a smiling Myles, helmet tipped back enough to show his face while still leaving his hands free to hold two bowls of rice topped with what looks like smoked fish. He offers a bowl to Obi-Wan, before dropping down criss-cross next to him.

"No one wanted to bother you," Myles tells him as he pulls two sets of chopsticks out of his bandolier, "Chalmun says you've been at it at least since the watch changed over."

It certainly isn't the first time Obi-Wan has felt comfortable enough in his surroundings that he doesn’t rouse even when approached by someone, but the Force usually at least lets him know someone's _there:_ this time, Dha hadn't even bothered. Obi-Wan hopes Chalmun hadn't thought he was ignoring him.

"I came out after I was done with that horrendous coding," Obi-Wan decides is a safe enough answer.

Myles is already stuffing his face, and chuckles into his bowl. "I've never seen Twavv so relieved to _not_ be the one doing the programming."

"Hmm, yes, she did mention something of the sort." Despite his distaste for seafood, Obi-Wan still enjoys the simple meal, and wonders what spices are typical for everyday dishes. "I hope I haven't missed anything important?"

"Nah, nothing except Mij having a conniption ’cause he didn't know what the kriff you were doing, and flipped when you wouldn't respond to anybody."

Obi-Wan laughs at the mental image, and only feels a little bit guilty for it, because he's mostly flattered by Mij's concern. "I'll have to apologise to him, then: I'm usually much easier to reach."

Shaking his head, Myles snorts. "Boso warned me _jetiise_ are strange as a Hutt in a charity shop, but you do just keep proving her right."

"... I'll take that as a compliment, I think."

"Clan Gilamar's crest is the Mandillian galaar, a totem of spontaneity: you'd fit in just fine on Concord Dawn."

Obi-Wan eyes him suspiciously. "Is this another attempt at surreptitious adoption."

And Myles just grins at him. "That didn't sound like a question, _jetii."_

"It wasn't."

"So I can't secretly slip you the _gai bal manda_ while you aren't paying attention?"

"Not unless you feel like explaining to your _riduur_ why you suddenly have a foundling less than five years younger than you."

"... Shut up and eat your breakfast, _ad'ika."_

Obi-Wan returns to the tent while Myles takes their dishes back to his tent, blowing into his hands to try and warm up his fingers. 

Jango is already up and about —Obi-Wan had expected nothing less from him— but is only half into his _beskar’gam,_ clearly taking his time, clearly with the same reverence that the Jedi don their many layers, and Obi-Wan hesitates in the doorway. Something great in him shifts and settles into place somewhere new, as he takes in the fact that Jango had switched his flightsuit from grey to black, and had touched up any chips in the paint; what gives Obi-Wan the greatest pause, though, is not the rapier cape now fixed to Jango’s left shoulder, but that he had painted his _beskar’ta_ to match it. 

Red to honor a _buir,_ to honor Jaster.

Jango glances up when he's in everything but his bucket, and Obi-Wan can't find it in him to pretend he hadn't been looking — the _haar ronov'la_ in his pocket starts to burn.

"... It's rude to stare," Jango finally says, his fidgeting fingers as he pulls on his gloves the only betrayal of his unease. 

Obi-Wan tilts his head at him and considers snarking back, but instead finds the cordon he had tucked away earlier that morning. "I was just thinking that you were missing something," he returns softly, smiling, and marvels at the way Jango just lets him approach, guard completely down. 

"I think I would know if I had forgotten any of my armor, _kih'Alor."_

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Obi-Wan wrinkles his nose and taps two fingers to the left side of Jango's gorget. "That much is clear, Mand’alor, and yet, Myles tells me you still have not asked him about them."

Jango is bewildered for all of a moment before he sees the cordon Obi-Wan nimbly begins attaching to the same clasp as his cape. He says nothing, not frowning, but not smiling either, and Obi-Wan focuses on his task in an attempt to ignore the way Jango's gaze has not left his face.

Just under the fold of his cape, mostly hidden by the fabric is a _kyr’bes_ carefully painted jade, an exact match in shade to Obi-Wan’s own, and, ah, he does remember leaving the last of his paint in Jango’s tent after touching up his own _beskar’ta,_ but after their... conversation the day before, is Jango really going to wear a color projecting peace as he threatens to tear just that down for the entire planet? Is he... really going to walk around matching Obi-Wan, however inconspicuously?

Suddenly terrified and flustered and calm all at once, Obi-Wan almost jerks away — before he reminds himself that he isn’t sixteen and stupid anymore. And hadn’t he told Jango that he was tired of running? He will not make a liar out of himself.

"Myles explained them to me," he finally finds the voice to say, carefully pinning the top of the _haar ronov’la_ under the folds of Jango’s cape, "and you're too smart not to have figured out what they mean." He smooths it down to hang properly down the side of Jango’s chest before stepping back, and Jango's steady gaze stays that way. The silence stretches, but it is not uncomfortable, not so much as it scares the absolute kriff out of him. "It felt wrong to see their leader without one."

Behind him, Myles and Kal's voices approach the tent and break the tension between them, yet Jango still does not look away. 

_"Vor entye, jett'ika,"_ he murmurs, before slipping on his helmet and moving to greet his men, leaving Obi-Wan floundering and unable to even breathe. 

The _Haat’ade_ aren’t well pleased that to look... legitimate enough, Kal and Obi-Wan have to loom behind Jango like bodyguards, but Jango’s inner circle are versed enough in politics to understand the importance of presence and image, especially at first contact. Still grumbling, Kal joins Obi-Wan behind the chair that looks as close to a throne as they could manage under the circumstances, petulant as he shoves on his helmet.

“We are equals to our Mand’alor,” he says to no one in particular while they wait for Twavv to finish fiddling with the holocamera pointed right at them.

“Not to Satine,” Obi-Wan snorts, pinning the last corner of Ch’Thehvok’s scarf into the folds at his temple with a pin borrowed from Chalmun, and adjusts it until it pulls snugly across the bridge of his nose. “Besides, he needs to look intimidating.”

Even without seeing his face, Obi-Wan can almost feel Kal’s eyeroll. “As if the ‘Jedi Killer’ needs anything more intimidating than his reputation.”

Obi-Wan winces, but quickly releases his hurt back into the Force. “The Jedi mean little to her, Jango will need more than his reputation.”

“To be fair, they also all think I’m dead,” Jango ducks around Twavv who finally seems satisfied with the camera, and drops into his chair like it really is a throne, sprawled with just enough condescension to surely enrage Satine. “Perhaps the shock will do my job for me.”

Across the tent, Myles watches them from behind Jango’s desk, his exaggerated frown pulling the fins on his cheeks. “Why does Ob’ika get to be on the holo when we’re trying to keep him a secret?” he complains, as Jango sets his helmet on his knee and nods to Twavv to tell her he’s ready. “Meanwhile, _I’ve_ never had the honor of being Jango’s–”

“Because it was Kenobi’s stupid plan,” Twavv deadpans, tossing a microphone muff at Myles’ face without looking. “Now quiet, Duchess Demagolka’s meeting should be well underway by now, I’m going to connect the signal. You three ready?”

She doesn’t actually wait for them to respond to switch on first the holoprojector, and then the camera. The projector immediately connects to the largest screen in the Sundari council chamber, which looks far more like the Republic Senate than Obi-Wan remembers it being, and gives them a clear view of both Satine and many of her governors at the periphery. 

The holocamera beeps, and then Satine is looking right at them.

She looks good, better than the last time Obi-Wan had seen her, better than even the happier visions he’d lived through on Ilum. With round cheeks and a headdress large enough to surely be compensating for something, it disappoints and saddens Obi-Wan to see her so put together, knowing it comes at the cost of children from the system’s fringe planets being kidnapped and indoctrinated into Death Watch. 

_“What is the meaning of this?”_ The holo flickers, distorting her expression, but not fast enough to miss her eyes widening as she recognises Jango.

“Duchess Kryze, I don’t believe we’ve been previously introduced,” Jango says flatly, somehow still conveying that he speaks formally out of _spite._

_“We have not,”_ Satine returns slowly, carefully sitting back down in her throne while her council waits in bated breath. _“Tell me, why have you intercepted my private,_ heavily _encrypted holo signal? I shouldn’t think I have to remind you it is against Mandalore law to–”_

“You may discuss Mandalore law when you earn _any_ right to do so.” Jango raises a brow at Satine’s stunned expression. “A name I trust has attempted to assure me you are more intelligent than _Kyr’tsad_ gives you credit for, and you know who I am: you know why I’m here.”

Her eyes flick to Obi-Wan like she _knows,_ and he wonders again about her claim to being Force-null, though Dha tries to convince Obi-Wan that there’s no way for her to know it is him behind the scarf.

_“You’re right, I do know why you’re here; perhaps I just thought the son of a terrorist would be more bold in his attempt to destroy the democracy I have spent decades building. Don’t you have some farm to go burn?”_

Something in the projector cracks before Obi-Wan can get control of his anger again, and luckily the image of Satine does not flicker out. He can see Jango glance at him in the holocamera, and for once, Obi-Wan is happy to share this rage with someone.

“You confuse me with Death Watch, Kryze,” Jango says, voice somehow still perfectly level. “If you will not be civil, then I address the current council of the New Mandalorians:” he looks out over the chamber, away from Satine who can barely contain her ire, “I, Mand’alor Jango Fett of the _Haat Mando’ade,_ formally challenge Satine Kryze for the rule of Mandalore. We do not ask for violence. But we are prepared to fight for our freedom, and the unseating of a _dar’mando’ad_ that has burned everything that made us Mandalorian.”

Satine rises back to her feet, easily silencing the tittering of her governors and councilors with a wave of her hand. _“You have no power here, Fett, you cannot challenge someone to single combat who will not fight.”_

“I did not challenge you to single combat.” Jango finally moves, only to straighten slightly and lean forward, again just enough to intimidate, and to show that he’s _serious._ “Step down peacefully, Kryze, and this will be the end of it.”

Obi-Wan watches Satine’s hands shake, once again struck by just how full of rage the leader of a “peaceful” faction can be. 

_“I will not fight you, Fett,”_ she says, to several gasps from her council, _“But I will not have to.”_ She hits a button on her desk, and the feed cuts out.

“... Well, that was ominous,” Kal says into the leaden tension saturating the air.

Obi-Wan doesn’t get the chance to agree, Mij bursting into the tent like he had run from all the way from the other side of camp, rushing to interrupt, “Jang’ika, Ezovac confirms fourteen _Kyr’tsad_ starfighters just left Sundari ports." Kal swears, yanking off his helmet, but Obi-Wan knows there’s more, there has to be _more_ bad news for Mij to keep looking at them like that. “Vizsla’s ship was docked at the palace.”

_Oh,_ Obi-Wan thinks to Dha, _that’s what you meant._

Twavv stands next to the projector, her many eyes not leaving Jango as he gets to his feet. “Is this war, Mand’alor?”

“It was always going to be war, Twavv.” Sighing himself, he glances at Obi-Wan again, though he can’t get a read on Jango’s face. “Well, _kih’Alor,_ it seems we have no choice but to face that army three times our size.”

Breathing deeply, Obi-Wan shoves away the images of Melida/Daan Dha keeps pulling to the surface. “Three and a half,” he says, and gets sincere —if a bit uneasy— laughs from everyone except Jango. “I follow you into this, too, Jango.” This does not end here.

Jango searches his eyes for something Obi-Wan still isn’t sure if he finds, and even with Ch’Thehvoc’s scarf between them, he does know what Jango is thinking.

_This does not end here._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will i ever stop giving obi-wan nosebleeds probably not im predictable as fuck


End file.
